Would a Russian be good for Aston Villa?

Firstly, those of you who have visited or spent time in Russia will know the rich in Russia are rich and the poor are poor. The really rich people in Russia, i.e. those that have ?60mn. to spend on a football club, are really filthy rich.

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Roman Abramovich is filthy rich and although I was against him coming into the English game to begin with nobody has stopped him and it doesn't look likely that anyone will so why not join the gang?

Given the opportunity to take a little bit of the filthy rich out of Russia and put it in B6 sounds good to me.

Let's assume that Doug Ellis accepted the reported offer of 580p a share and the mystery Russian took control of the club.

He would own Aston Villa Football Club and everything associated with it, similar to Roman Abramovich and Chelsea (although Abramovich doesn't directly own Chelsea - the company that own Chelsea is owned by another company that is owned by another company that is owned by Abramovich - or something like that but you get the picture).

All profits at the end of the year would be his. He could, ultimately, decide to keep the cash for himself or put it back in the club, along with any other funds that he wanted to.

Likewise, if any debts are generated by the club they are, at the end of the day, his responsibility. He would be protected with limited liability because of the Limited company status but so is every other Premiership club.

But let's look at an actual example of a Russian owning an English team. Has Roman Abramovich done such a bad job?

I don't think he has and given the chance to take Roman Abramovich now I think all of us would accept him with open arms.

So, to summarise, is a Russian good for Aston Villa? Yes, absolutely. But let's not forget, the first story we wrote about this went into 'speculation' and this is only paper talk.

So many supporters have been calling for Doug to leave, that nobody can really complain now if he does sell up, especially as many were up for ex Birmingham City player Ray Ranson and he hadn't actually told us where the money was coming from or what his plans were.

The club is a plc so anyone can come along and make an offer. Let's just hope this offer is a real offer and the mystery buyer wants to spend as much as is necessary to make Aston Villa great again.

What do you want? Answer our quick question and email us your thoughts to damian@astonvilla.biz.