Fining Villa is futile

QUITE plainly, Tony Xia has done a thoroughly rotten job as owner of Aston Villa. His club owes £4.2million to HMRC and £11m in transfer fees to rivals. They will lose good players, possibly a good manager, and it is hard to imagine a return to the Premier League any time soon, unless a buyer with vision is found. There is a chance the club will slip into administration, and significant staff redundancies are expected. What cannot be explained is why the Football League feels the appropriate punishment for this mess is financial. The last thing Villa need right now is another bill to pay. In football, fiscal mismanagement is surely its own penalty. Leeds and Portsmouth fell through football’s pyramid and neither have recovered their Premier League status. That is the punishment, right there. Why add salt to the wound?