Chief Executive Keith Wyness has confirmed that Aston Villa are playing a role in exploring an opportunity for a tie up with Danish Superliga side Lyngby Boldklub.
The speculation linking Dr Tony Xia and Aston Villa to the side in Denmark has been well covered:
Aston Villa’s Sister Clubs & Our Future Plans
How Could Aston Villa Benefit From Xia’s Expansion Plans?
Wyness has however now confirmed that potential moves are afoot, but it’s far from straight forward.
Speaking to Danish outlet BT and translation via Sky Sports, Wyness confirmed that we are exploring the possibility of a tie up with the side and the aim would be youth development based, but Villa themselves would not be putting any money into the venture pot – instead providing advice on the deal and playing our part in said tie up.
The finance would come from a separate and so far unnamed, investment company, so there may in fact by no Xia involvement here outside of Villa being a party. That’s not what many of us expected when we had talks of ‘motherships’ and ‘sister clubs’ but potential our involvement could be for our own education in some ways before embarking on our own network and putting our/Xia’s money at the fore.
‘I would like to confirm that we are coming to Denmark at the beginning of next week. Maybe Monday, but probably Tuesday. We will send five men to look into the circumstances. Aston Villa has a strong connection to Danish football, and I have known many Danish football players over time, so I know the quality of Danish football and the Danish football team education. It is, among other things, what makes Lyngby an interesting club for us.’
Wyness went on to say that he’s seen the opportunities that such a tie in can provide and he went on to reference Matthew Benham and his ownership of Brentford and FC Midtjylland, but again Benham owns both clubs and this is where I’m perplexed by an outside investment company being referenced.
‘We do not come to clean up, but to develop the club further, after local business people have done a good job. We believe that we can help develop and run the club better than it has been driven for some years, and it is, among other things, what we come to Denmark to be sure of. We still need to meet Lyngby’s leadership face-to-face, and then we’ll look closely at the finances before we finally say ‘yes’.’
The best Google translate gives me on the original article to try and clear some things up, is rather than talking about ‘outside investment company’ the translation uses the line ‘the acquisition of Lyngby can be one of several steps on the way to developing players to the club’s first team’.
Which is more fitting with the thoughts we all had to begin with.
Probably safer to just watch and wait until something concrete happens from here, but it certainly looks like we are taking steps down that road.
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