Aston Villa have been thrown into financial turmoil and face the threat of being served with a winding-up petition by HMRC, after the Championship club failed to pay a tax bill that was due last Friday. The news that Villa had missed a tax payment emerged on the same day that Keith Wyness, the chief executive, was suspended as a sense of crisis deepened at the Midlands club.

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Villa are currently working with HMRC to try to find a resolution to a problem that is likely to be solved in the short term but threatens to resurface in one way or another further down the line because of the wider financial issues at a club that has been operating beyond its means and was essentially gambling on returning to the Premier League.

It is understood that the outstanding HMRC tax bill is in the region of £4m. Even if Villa make that payment in the coming days – there are suggestions that HMRC will have their money by the end of the week – the feeling within the club is that another financial issue could be around the corner unless there is some sort of cash injection.

Tony Xia, Villa’s owner, is not short of money but moving funds out of China is not straightforward. The worry for Villa’s supporters will be that the unpaid tax bill is a sign of things to come, so much so that the threat of administration, which is seen as the worst-case scenario for the club, cannot be dismissed.

The decision to suspend Wyness is not directly linked to the missed tax payment and says more about the chief executive’s relationship with Xia, the billionaire Chinese businessman who bought Villa two years ago, and the way in which things have unravelled during talks between the pair since the play-off final defeat by Fulham at Wembley less than a fortnight ago.

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In a frank statement released last week Xia warned that Villa “will face severe Financial Fair Play challenges next season”. The club’s owner went on to say that Villa had been “heavily investing for the past two seasons” but that defeat against Fulham “means that we need to change a lot of things”.

Although there has been speculation about fresh investment at Villa via new ownership, no takeover is imminent and everything points to a hugely challenging summer ahead, with the departure of Jack Grealish, the club’s prize asset, looking increasingly inevitable.