Comment: Support remains but the trust in Tony Xia has gone at Aston Villa
Anyone looking for light amid the current gloom at Villa can find it in the club’s still remarkable reserves of support.
Serious doubt might remain over Villa’s financial health, yet supporters continue to purchase season tickets at a quite incredible rate.
More than 1,000 were sold in the week after it emerged the club had been threatened with a winding-up order by HMRC, while the total sold for next term has now gone past the 20,000-mark.
That should be nothing other than heartening for fans worrying about the short, mid and long-term future.
A club is nothing without supporters and whatever happens over the coming weeks and months, Villa remain strong as ever on that front.
What season ticket sales should in no way disguise, however, is the colossal amount of trust in the current regime which has rapidly been eroded over recent weeks.
Even if Tony Xia finds a way to muddle through the storm, fans are never going to look upon their owner in the same way again. A zany Twitter persona just isn’t going to cut it anymore.
Whatever the circumstances of the missed tax payment, which precluded the winding-up threat, it exposed Xia and forced fans to look beyond the bluster.
For more than a fortnight they have asked for answers. The Aston Villa Supporters’ Trust have released no fewer than three statements doing precisely that, each more urgent than the last.
Yet there has been no response the club and it has become increasingly apparent that is because they have nothing concrete to say.
As of Tuesday night, Xia was still looking to secure investment which will allow Villa to pay their next set of bills, which will begin rolling in at the end of the week.
The expectation is that something will get sorted, though it is no certainty. Regardless, it is one heck of a risky, almost casual way to run one of the country’s most famous football clubs.
There is a chance Xia might sell. Yet a man who claims to have shelled out £150million in the gamble of reaching the Premier League still wants a return on the investment. A charitable estimate might say Villa are currently worth around only half of the £76.2million Xia paid Randy Lerner two years ago.
What has become increasingly clear, is even should Xia stave off the immediate crisis, there will be no quick fix.
At the very least, the owner owes the supporters some honest answers and at least the semblance of a long-term, sustainable plan. Yet by the time he is finally ready to deliver it, he may not find many ready to believe him.
