Talks over the sale of Aston Villa are expected to accelerate after they were threatened by HMRC with a winding-up order over an unpaid tax payment, according to the Times.
The newspaper claims via their website that negotiations have already been hold over Tony Xia cashing in on the Championship club, that has been plunged into financial crisis after losing the Championship play-off final to Fulham last month.
It is understood that Peter B Freund, a minority shareholder at MLB franchies New York Yankees, is readying a formal bid worth £75million for Villa, two years after Chinese businessman Xia bought the club off Randy Lerner for £76million.
Xia was originally said to have valued the West Midlands club at £100million, but the news of an unpaid tax bill of £4.2million and the suspension of chief executive Keith Wyness means that no one has offered to reach that valuation.
OPINION
Everyone thought that Aston Villa had paid the price for poor management when they were relegated from the Premier League two years, but now they are really paying the price with the very existence of the club now at serious threat. Villa’s activity in the transfer market over the last few years has been baffling to say that least. The fact that someone sanctioned such ridiculous fees spent on the likes of Ross McCormack, Scott Hogan and Aaron Tshibola is absolutely criminal. And the wages that some of these players are still earning is ridiculous. Micah Richards and McCormack are among two of the top earners at Villa Park and failed to kick a ball last season. Will someone come in to buy the club in this crisis? A US businessman like Freund could be the answer, but won’t he just rinse and repeat what has already happened and just delay the inevitable? And even he won’t help the club avoid breaking Financial Fair Play rules. It’s very worrying to be a Villa fan right now.