Aston Villa are facing a nightmare financial situation if Fulham beat them in the Championship play-off final at Wembley on Saturday, according to the Telegraph.
The newspaper claims that the Villains would have to scrap deals to sign Robert Snodgrass, Sam Johnstone and Lewis Grabban on a permanent basis if they miss out on promotion back to the Premier League while the star trio of Jack Grealish, James Chester and Jonathan Kodjia may end up exiting the West Midlands club with their futures’ plunged into doubt.
It is understood that Villa may even have to sell their training ground due to the major pressure to avoid breaking Financial Fair Play regulations, that could possibly see them hit with a transfer embargo.
OPINION
Villa are now paying the price for what was a ridiculous first transfer window in the Championship. Tony Xia showed that he clearly had no clue what he was spending his money on when he let Roberto di Matteo splash major cash on the likes of Ross McCormack, Aaron Tshibola, Tommy Elphick and Pierluigi Gollini. All this while the club only really made any decent money off selling Idrissa Gueye and Ciaran Clark. Villa were so desperate to go back up that they played a major risk with Financial Fair Play and that will definitely come back to bite them if they lose at Wembley. Fulham are understandably the favourites and it would be an absolute disaster for the club if they were to lose. Steve Bruce has done a great job at Villa Park, but he may not want to stick around and deal with the mess if they miss out on promotion.