If Michel Platini and Co's Financial Fair Play is such a gift to club owners, why will nobody buy Aston Villa?



Villa, the biggest club in Britain's second city, are struggling to find a buyer

UEFA claim financially astute clubs will thrive under FFP laws

But without heavy investment there is no way into the top 6 for Villa

Relative to Fabio Borini's £14m price tag, Luis Suarez is a snip at £75m

Yaya Toure will be staying at Man City, and perhaps should be given a Bafta for his outbursts via his shameless agent Dimitri Seluk

New Newcastle signing Remy Cabella has been written off as too frail, but Luka Modric got the same treatment only to prove his doubters wrong

England plummeted to 20th in the FIFA rankings, a more accurate placing

Ravindra Jadeja made England look silly with bat and ball on Saturday



Each January, the Birmingham Post publishes its rich list. The last one contained 20 names of Midlands business folk that, by the calculations of its experts, could afford to purchase Aston Villa outright. Yet still, nobody has.

Lord Bamford, chairman of JCB, prefers collecting vintage Ferraris. Sir Peter Rigby, founder of what is now Europe’s largest independent IT company, likes to fly helicopters and listen to classical music. Steve Morgan already has his hands full with Wolverhampton Wanderers. These are the breaks.

Even so, considering the Premier League broadcasts to a global market, one would think a buyer for the biggest club in Britain’s second city would not be so hard to find.

VIDEO Scroll down to watch Newcastle signing Cabella freestyling with France team-mates



Hot property? Aston Villa - the second city's biggest club - are still on sale with no sign of a buyer

Getting rid: Randy Lerner (left) put the club up for sale in May after eight years of mixed success at Villa Park

Yet, still, the For Sale sign resides on the unkempt lawn, as it has all summer. As it has since 2010, really, considering that was the year Martin O’Neill, Villa’s manager, walked out, unable to accept the significant shift in transfer policy that was the first indication of changing times.

Until that point, the owner, Randy Lerner, had shown great ambition in trying to drag Aston Villa into the elite. O’Neill spent over £80million net, achieving three consecutive sixth-place finishes, but faced with repeating that in a final push for glory, Lerner balked and instead implemented a sell-to-buy regime. This soon became more of a selling regime, by which time O’Neill was long gone.

Lerner was looking to follow almost from that point. Not as openly as now, true, but it has been rumoured for several years that he would be interested if the right buyer at the right price came along. Everton is on the market in a similar way, with Bill Kenwright accepting the financial reality of his stewardship.

So, a quick question for Michel Platini and the members of his UEFA brains trust: if Financial Fair Play is the gift to football club owners that you would have us believe, where is the queue of local businessmen seeking to take advantage of this windfall with Aston Villa?

In a matter of months of hard selling the asking price has already dropped by a quarter, to £150m. Yet still nothing. No rich Arabs, no interest from China, tumbleweed blows across America. Most importantly, no Brummies. Not even a sniff from the names on the Birmingham Post rich list, from Pete Waterman to Sir Euan Anstruther-Gough-Calthorpe.

Towards the end of May, there was a briefly flickering light on the horizon. Tevfik Arif, a Kazakh-born property mogul and business associate of Donald Trump, was announced as a front-runner in the acquisition of Aston Villa. Bank of America Merrill Lynch, who are handling the sale, would not confirm Arif’s involvement, but did not deny it either. He was supposed to be No 1 in a list of six to eight suitors.

Kitty: Martin O'Neill spent £80million net attempting to get Villa into the Champions League

Bottled: Villa's best chance came in 2009, but they fell away despite a healthy advantage over Arsenal

Arif’s interest in sports business was said to include a share of Doyen Capital, a London-based hedge fund that has stakes in professional footballers, including Radamel Falcao. It all seemed to be falling into place. And then, within a week, the following announcement.

‘Mr Tevfik Arif has today asked us to make clear that other than being an avid sports fan himself, he: has no experience of running football clubs; has never met Randy Lerner; and neither he, nor any members of his family, or anyone acting on his behalf has any interest in acquiring Aston Villa Football Club; in addition, he has no involvement in any sports related businesses. We are happy to set out Mr Arif’s position.’

Since when, nothing. No more from Arif, silence from the six or so names in that evaporating queue behind him. Lerner must be concerned. Villa are not such a rotten proposition. They have a fine ground, a European pedigree in the pre-Champions League era, a loyal following.



Prince William supports them. So does Tom Hanks. They are centrally located in England, next to a major motorway, and easily accessible, and are the first, best- supported club of a major European city. They could be very big.

Staying put: Lambert (right) and assistant Roy Keane are in charge while Villa's future remains uncertain

Default: Villa eventually stayed up last term, but clocked up fewer than 40 points doing so Limited budget: Villa have had to look for cheaper signings this summer, with Joe Cole coming in

What the average fan might see as irrelevant beside the identity of the manager or the make-up of the first-team squad has value to a buyer. Paul Lambert, Christian Benteke or Ron Vlaar are passing through but a future king on the firm might put your club on the global map. Glamour, history, location, the trivial happenstance of the odd famous fan — these can all be useful selling factors.



There is a French pop group called Aston Villa, just as there are English groups called St Etienne or Kaiser Chiefs. Why? It’s a cool name. That’s why Tom Hanks took an interest in it, too. If you’re an American and just getting into soccer, Aston Villa sounds as quintessentially English as the New York Yankees sound evocatively American to us.

Don’t laugh. It matters. When Roman Abramovich bought Chelsea, that iconic name and the west London location would have helped clinch the deal. They are marketable factors. It wouldn’t have concerned him greatly that Chelsea had not won the league in half a century — that was a drought he could address with investment. Now, thanks to Financial Fair Play, a new owner is close to helpless. And that is why Lerner can’t sell Aston Villa.

Owners exist for many different reasons but one of the most frequently overlooked is the human desire to have fun. Some are motivated by love, some by commerce, but the shared desire is usually still enjoyment. Kenwright looks like he is in agony watching Everton sometimes, but no doubt the victories taste very good.

Attractive: Villa have a fine ground, a European pedigree in the pre-Champions League era, a loyal following Penny to rub? Paul Lambert, current manager at Villa Park, has to deal with a reduced budget

Sheik Mansour spends very little time at the Etihad Stadium but it is said wherever he is in the world he never misses a Manchester City game and one imagines, at home in Abu Dhabi, when the chaps come round to watch in the air-conditioned cinema room, it’s fun. Even Mike Ashley had pleasure in mind when he bought Newcastle United. What would be the point otherwise?

And Chelsea, for Abramovich, was fun, too. He wanted to be part of the passing parade, he wanted to be entertained, to be successful, to have a good day out. And back then, he could. It was an expensive hobby but his commitment to Chelsea has never faltered.

Yet what remains for any new owner of Aston Villa? To maintain? To stay up? To exist? Where’s the fun in that? Where’s the bang for the buck?



Fun and games: Sheikh Mansour is hardly at the Etihad, but says he finds a way to watch every game

Villa is value only if a buyer can then invest and get in the game. If all he can do is provide po-faced financial services, plodding along with neatly balanced books and a decade of mediocrity ahead, he might as well put his money into a savings account.

UEFA claim that the financially astute clubs will thrive under the new rules, but without additional owner investment, there is no longer a way forward for Villa. Any good players they produce will be poached by the privileged elite — ask Southampton — and the only frisson of excitement will be an occasional cup run, or the seasons when it all goes wrong producing the threat of relegation.

It is a miserable portfolio for a prospective owner, with none of the optimism Lerner must have felt when entering the Premier League in 2006.

Platini’s version of Financial Fair Play was introduced under pressure from the elite. ‘It’s mainly the owners that asked us to do something,’ he said. ‘Abramovich, Silvio Berlusconi at AC Milan and Massimo Moratti at Inter Milan. They do not want to fork out any more.’ Fine, then don’t fork out.

Rich: Chelsea hadn't won a title in 50 years, but Abramovich (centre) was still attracted to the club in 2003

But that wasn’t what the owners demanded, really. They were tired of spending — but scared of losing ground to rivals. So they wanted to stop everyone else spending, too; and being a fool, Platini mistook this for fairness and agreed.



This is now the perfect arrangement for Abramovich, but disastrous for Lerner. Buying a football club used to be an ambition for men who sought the challenge of competition, who wished for excitement and did not really care about the cost. Now it is the preserve of the finance department, wholly bound in UEFA’s red tape.

Fred Allen, the American radio comedian, wrote an autobiography that seemed to encapsulate the plight of those trapped outside Platini’s elite: Treadmill To Oblivion, he called it.

It is hard to see how this will change either, with an exclusive group cemented so tightly in place.

How can Villa get beyond Manchester United, Manchester City, Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and, at a stretch, Tottenham Hotspur if they can only spend what they have already generated? Where’s the thrill? How is Lerner meant to make his club saleable? What dream is he peddling, beyond the heady thrill of accountancy?

Deterrence: Platini's 'gift' of Financial Fair Play has not helped form a queue of potential buyers for Aston Villa

£11m McCormack? No wonder clubs get priced out...

In any discussion about spiralling transfer fees, it is always the richest clubs that get the blame. Manchester City, or Chelsea, are typically held responsible for the fact that clubs in the lower leagues are crippled by an expensively hostile market.

Yet the most inflationary transfer this summer, without a doubt, is Ross McCormack’s move from Leeds United to Fulham for £11million, with the proposed sale of Fabio Borini to Sunderland from Liverpool for £14m not far behind.

Big deal: McCormack moved from Leeds United to Fulham for a hugely inflated £11million

These are the deals that will be quoted when Leicester City open negotiations for Troy Deeney at Watford, not the £75m paid by Barcelona for Luis Suarez.



Relative to the Borini deal, Suarez is a snip. McCormack’s move, meanwhile, jacks up prices in domestic football, forcing clubs abroad for value as opportunities for British players decrease. And so it goes.

Relative: Suarez at £75million is a snip compared to Fabio Borini to Sunderland for £14million

And while we're at it

Yaya Toure will be staying at Manchester City after all, as a sincere gesture to the supporters.



‘There was a lot of speculation — sometimes it’s quite disappointing,’ he said. ‘I need to do something for the fans — it’s important. They’ve done a lot for me.’

Toure’s agent, the shameless Dimitri Seluk, said last week that his client should have been given more individual awards last season.



After this little turn, one can only presume the Bafta is in the post.

One big act: Yaya Toure will stay at Manchester City 'for the fans' after speculation of unrest

Modric shows how frail can flourish

Remy Cabella, Newcastle United’s new signing, has been dismissed as frail by Montpellier chairman Louis Nicollin. The implication is that he will disappoint in the Premier League — although, equally, Nicollin could be smarting at not getting his £12million asking price.

For reassurance, anxious Newcastle fans would do well to remember the last player publicly considered too frail to succeed in England: Luka Modric, as assessed by Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger in 2008.



What a delicate little flower he turned out to be. He could barely lift that great big trophy he won with Real Madrid in May.

Advice: Cabella (left) should take confidence from Modric (right), who was written off by some



Blackpool called off a pre-season trip to Spain. ‘Our time is better served trying to get some of the player deals over the line,’ read a statement. Translation: we can’t get a team out.



The Blackpool XI that played Penrith at the weekend included five unnamed trialists in the starting line-up, with another two on the bench.



How does a professional club get itself in such a state? How does any businessman get to play at football, if this is the commercial acumen he first brought to his own trade?

Confident: Blackpool chairman Karl Oyston believes they will be competitive next season

It has been another excellent week of expectation management at the Football Association, as England plummeted to 20th in FIFA’s world rankings, their lowest position in 18 years.



Back then, however, it was a false reading caused by two years of international friendly games in the build-up to the 1996 European Championship.

This seems a more accurate assessment with England not quite as good as Bosnia-Herzegovina and Mexico, but slightly better than Ecuador and Ukraine.



Where, however, does the management of expectation end, and simply being lousy at something begin? Could the FA stop dumbing down now even if it wanted to? England’s expectations appear to have been managed over a cliff.

Future? The England team before they faced Costa Rica at the World Cup

England’s cricketers were inexplicably late back on to the field after tea on Saturday, keeping the Indian batsmen waiting for several minutes. It was the height of bad manners, yet few seemed surprised at their dismal behaviour. No wonder Australia took such delight in taking this team down in spectacular style last winter.

Equally, if Jimmy Anderson did manhandle Ravindra Jadeja during the first Test at Trent Bridge, he was made to look very silly for doing so on Sunday as the spinner as good as took the match away from England, scoring freely off his bowling before taking Sam Robson’s wicket with his first ball. There does seem to be a karmic element to certain recent events.