Re: Dr. Tony Xia.

by **villabromsgrove** Wed Jul 27, 2016 7:58 pm

I noticed (browsing elsewhere) that Chris Samuelson's name has been removed from the AVFC board of directors on the official site. Tracy Gu has been named on the board instead. Any one fill in some background? I can't find anything after a brief search.

by **Sandie** Wed Jul 27, 2016 9:01 pm

I read something in dispatches on Twitter about someone failling the Fit and Proper persons test. What I missed is whether it was Samuelson, whether it was established fact or whether they had seen the same thing as you and put two and two together and come up with s number that wasn't necessarily 4.

by **Sandie** Wed Jul 27, 2016 9:06 pm

I've just found an article in the Mail saying the directors were accepted so not sure the above is accurate. Samuelson is listed as a director here: https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/10176070/officers having resigned and then been re-appointed (to allow a change of correspondence address, I guess?).

by **Sandie** Wed Jul 27, 2016 11:56 pm

It's Banfill who supposedly failed the Fit and Proper Persons Test. Again, not sure this is accurate.

Another observation, when Xia's board "passed" the fit and proper persons test there was another name, Andrew Oblensky, who worked with Samuelson at Reading. He still is yet to hold an AVFC/Recon directorship in spite of being a member of the putative board.

There's been a few on the #avfc Twitter feed who have maintained that Samuelson is the actual owner and seem to think that this adds fuel to their fire. Isn't it as likely that Xia has taken them out of the picture when he's found that there have been these question marks over them?

by **villabromsgrove** Thu Jul 28, 2016 9:19 am

Samuelson has been appointed to the board of Recon Sports (20th July) but removed from the AVFC board. Banfil is named as a director of VicVilla Health food co. The amount of appointments/resignations to various Dr T companies is dizzying at the moment. I'm sure it's just business, but not as we're used to seeing it.

by **villabromsgrove** Thu Jul 28, 2016 9:25 am

Andrew Oblensky has had an interesting career recently. Check it out.

by **villabromsgrove** Thu Jul 28, 2016 12:07 pm

villabromsgrove wrote:I noticed (browsing elsewhere) that Chris Samuelson's name has been removed from the AVFC board of directors on the official site. Tracy Gu has been named on the board instead. Any one fill in some background? I can't find anything after a brief search.

http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/aston-villa-who-new-director-11674840?

The Birmingham Mail has answered my question. Thankyou BM. Dr. Tony Xia. - Page 16 4288271622

by **Sandie** Thu Jul 28, 2016 1:16 pm

Looks to me like she'll be in place to liaise between the board and staff and probably look to fill some of the holes left by the redundancies.

by **villabromsgrove** Thu Jul 28, 2016 2:48 pm

http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/aston-villa-owner-dr-tony-11676025?

Has Dr Tony been on the booze? Dr. Tony Xia. - Page 16 3640643743

by **Sandie** Thu Jul 28, 2016 3:01 pm

I'm starting to wonder whether Xia's openness is refreshing or embarrassing.

by **villabromsgrove** Thu Jul 28, 2016 3:04 pm

This one is definitely embarrassing. The problem is that apart from Wyness (who's on twitter as well) there's no one to tell Tony to pack it in.

by **Sandie** Thu Jul 28, 2016 3:39 pm

He'll pack it in if we have a slow start to the season. He'll end up being so much of a target if that happens especially if our tame transfer business doesn't liven up.

by **villabromsgrove** Thu Jul 28, 2016 4:09 pm

I love Tony's 'fan type' enthusiasm, but he needs to understand that he must not incite fans to behave badly, even if he thinks such behaviour is deserved.

by **Sandie** Thu Jul 28, 2016 11:25 pm

A fairly good opinion piece on Xia's tweets: http://www.thevillablogger.com/dr-xias-tweets-dont-do-it-for-me/

There's quite a divide on Twitter over them and a lot of the people coming down on Xia's side are taking the view that "well some people are never happy, they complained about Lerner's non-communication and now they complain about Xia's efforts to reach out". That's a fairly naive approach for me and ignores that there's actually a middle ground between Lerner's (later on) and Xia's approaches. A rather wide and huge middle ground, in fact. I also think a lot of people have forgotten the early days of Lerner. He was in fact a very enthusiastic custodian himself. Just read this (badly formatted, I apologise) article: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-509428/Randy-Lerner--right-sort-American.html where we hear of Lerner walking into pubs and buying everybody a drink or wandering around Villa Park post game and chatting to people. There was also the General who came on to H&V and VT to answer fans questions for a few years. So there isn't really a wide dualism between the two of them in their early days.

However, I've never cared too much about communication. I want to be shown, rather than told. Frankly, I couldn't care if Dr. X never said a word and left everything to Wyness or whoever so long as the club was performing strongly. Frankly, I think most other fans wouldn't care about communication too in that case. It's only when the team is doing badly or when everything's up in the air (as it is now) that people get fussed.

by **villabromsgrove** Mon Aug 01, 2016 4:26 pm

Dr Tony is at it again. He's entitled to his opinion, but he should not be giving it in such a juvenile and loutish manner.

In fact as owner of AVFC he should rise above criticism and keep away from twitter. We may get a hell of a lot of sh*t thrown at us over the next few weeks and months, because the media are waiting to pounce on the 'fallen big boys'. The last thing we need is for our owner to get drawn into a storm of abuse. If he doesn't close his twitter account it's a case of not IF but WHEN it happens.

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