Wednesday, 18 May 2016

Chinese football in Birmingham

Day -756. WorldCup2018.

There is only a very weak link to the World Cup in this story. China have set out a long term goal to dominate world football by the year 2050, when they are going to win the World Cup. Chinese clubs have been spending a ridiculous amount of money on foreign players and are looking to dominate Asian club football as a first step.

This may have nothing to do with the following, but if I had the time it wouldn't be too hard to present a connection. Chinese money in football manifested itself in another way when Dr. Tony Xia  announced his purchase of Aston Villa. His vision is to bring Villa back into the Premier League next year and then establish them as top six team in England. Good luck with that Doc.

But this is still not the point of this post and with this next bit I will take it further away from any link to the World Cup. Randy Lerner, up until today Aston Villa's American owner (he's still American, just not the owner anymore) issued a goodbye statement. I do this everyday and sometimes I may be thinking out loud as I write and what is going on in my head may not come across the same way to whoever is reading this (just like that last sentence). But Mr Lerner doesn't say much and you would think that when he does he would take his time with it and maybe get somebody else to read it before he releases it. His last statement in April was described as bizarre. This one reads like he's had a few drinks, smoked a few somethings sitting in his Villa Park office one last time, so happy to be getting out of Birmingham. Not that he was there very often. In his April "note to supporters" he included the wonderful line: "Memories of Acorns on the shirt, and Ashley Young scoring a late winner against Everton still romantically nourish me." 
 
Today's message has classic lines all through it. Nothing different could have been expected when the opening line is: "Goodbye to all that…"

No comments:

Post a Comment