Few fans of Aston Villa Football Club would have imagined China’s Communist party playing any role in the direction of their 143-year-old team.
But when Tony Xia sold his majority stake in the club this month, it was to escape a financial crisis partly prompted by a Chinese government clampdown on the country’s “irrational” multibillion-dollar investment surge into European football.
“It’s been very, very tough two months,” the Chinese businessman wrote on Twitter, where he has attracted more than 130,000 followers with tweets about the once mighty club that now languishes in the second tier of English football. “Nothing changed my love and commitment to AV”, he wrote, adding that Chinese economic policy had made the situation very difficult.