Aston Villa’s owners have launched themselves to Premier League-wide attention through both what they have helped Unai Emery achieve on the pitch and their strategy behind the scenes.
Villa were a financially imperilled Championship club with mounting debts and Financial Fair Play issues when Wes Edens and Nassef Sawiris took over from Tony Xia in 2018.
Six years later, FFP – or Profit and Sustainability Rule (PSR) as they are called in the Premier League – is still a concern owing to NSWE’s enormous recruitment expenditure.
Profit and Sustainability Rules explained. PSR used to be known as FFP, or financial fair play.
However, nearly everything else has changed for the better.
The fact Villa were disappointed with a 0-0 draw with Juventus in the Champions League last night, albeit in controversial circumstances after Morgan Rogers’ late disallowed goal, indicates how far they’ve come.
That was Aston Villa’s seventh match without a win in all competitions, but they remain in the hunt for the top four in the Premier League and automatic qualification for the Champions League knockouts.
But it is not just on the field of play that Villa are signalling their ambitions to establish themselves among the domestic and European elite.
They recently caused a stir when they sided with Man City in their challenge to the Premier League’s APT rules, giving evidence in the hearing itself and voting with City on the revised rules last Friday.
Infographic explaining the Premier League's Associated Party Transaction (APT) rules
The alliance between the two clubs – which may have been helped somewhat with Edens and Sawiris’ business links to Abu Dhabi – has been growing stronger for some time.
That is a contrast to a few years ago, when Villa almost joined the Union of European Clubs, a rebel group whose aim is to lobby on behalf of underrepresented clubs, in order to gain more influence.
Now, they clearly see themselves as bedfellows with the richest and best clubs in the game. And their voice is being heard.
Their standing within football finance and governance circles has been bolstered by the investment of Atairos, the London-headquartered private equity firm who now own almost as much equity as NSWE.
A diagram breaking down the ownership structure of Aston Villa, split between Wes Edens, Nassef Sawiris and the private equity firm Atairos Partners
While concrete figures are not available, Atairos have billions of pounds worth of assets under management and are financed by Comcast, the media group that owns Sky Sports.
Together, the three shareholders at Villa Park are among the very riches the Premier League has to offer.
And while PSR may be an anchor for the ambitions in the short term, brand new developments suggest that the owners are looking for ways to give themselves more headroom to spend.
Aston Villa could use huge new loan for Villa Park revamp
Villa have long had ambitions to expand or potentially even rebuild their historic stadium.
Indeed, they carried out a £30m revamp concentrated on Villa’s lucrative hospitality suites over the summer.
However, the real sweeping changes that many fans have demanded for some time are yet to begin.
Several visions for the future of the stadium have been shared and subsequently shelved over the years, but earlier this year Villa unveiled plans to eventually increase capacity to over 50,000.
Infographic sowing the matchday incomes plus stadium capacities and planned upgrades in the Premier League, featuring Newcastle United, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Aston Villa, Leeds United, Tottenham, Arsenal and Everton
Significantly, infrastructure costs are exempt from PSR and the improved matchday and commercial income that a much bigger stadium would provide would be huge. More on that below.
But before they can reap the rewards, Villa first need to finance a project. The first phase of redevelopment focusing on the North Stand will cost £100m alone.
The rest of the rebuild will see costs soar considerably beyond that figure.
General Views of Villa park before the Premier League match between Aston Villa and Liverpool FC at Villa Park on November 02, 2019 in Birmingham, ...
Photo by Neville Williams/Aston Villa FC via Getty Images
It is a truism that billionaire’s rarely spend their own money, preferring instead to go to commercial lenders. And that is what Villa have just done.
Filings with the UK business registrar Companies House show that the club have taken out a loan from investment bank Goldman Sachs, secured against various properties including Villa Park.
The securities listed in the registration suggest that this is a major loan, beyond what would be expected to fund day-to-day, operational costs.
Those consulted by TBR Football suggest that this is almost certainly to fund a capital expenditure project.
That might mean that Edens, Sawiris and Atairos are getting their ducks in a row ahead of the long-awaited stadium redevelopment
The value of a new stadium for Aston Villa: A new model for NSWE?
In the last published financial year, Villa generated £18.8m in matchday income.
That made them one of the worst earners per match in the Premier League, generating less than £1m every time they played at Villa Park.
For context, Tottenham come close to earning £1m per matchday from catering alone.
A crude pro-rata calculation based on their current capacity, matchday income and planned capacity suggests that matchday income will rise to at least £22m when the expansion is done.
However, those figures were taken from 2022-23, before Villa were playing in Europe and before recent ticket price rises.
A general view as the sides make their way out of the tunnel during the Premier League match between Aston Villa and Liverpool FC at Villa Park on ...
Photo by Alex Pantling/Getty Images
In reality, any expansion and redevelopment will also likely have a high degree of emphasis on hospitality and other commercial experiences.
They would be looking to earn at least £45m in total per season at a redeveloped stadium, bringing them into the same bracket as the likes of West Ham and Newcastle United.
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