Nassef Sawiris has already agreed Abu Dhabi deal as Aston Villa owner's £6.8bn fortune shifts
Today at 02:32 PM
Nassef Sawiris is Egypt’s richest man and, alongside business partner Wes Edens, has transformed the fortunes of Aston Villa in recent years.
When Sawiris and Edens bought the club through their NSWE investment vehicle in 2018, Aston Villa were in the second tier and struggling to meet day-to-day running costs.
With the threat administration looming, Edens and Sawiris’ stabilized the club upon acquiring it from Chinese investor Tony Xia.
After missing out on promotion via the play-offs the previous season, Villa went one step further at Wembley in 2019-20 and returned to the Premier League in the first season under NSWE.
Edens and Sawiris have since brought a third owner into the structure in the private equity firm Atairos, who now own almost as much equity as the Egyptian-American duo.
But as football finance lecture and industry insider Kieran Maguire told TBR Football recently, Edens and Sawiris are still the key decision makers at Villa Park.
For many fans, Villa have the dream owners – a regime that are willing to spend whatever it takes within Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR) to bankroll success on the pitch.
The flipside is that NSWE-appointed president of business has hiked ticket prices, while the long-term business masterplan at Villa are not entirely sure.
Do Edens and Sawiris want to sell Villa for a profit? Will it be to Atairos? Do they plan on making the club itself profitable in the long term and skimming off the top? Where does that value come from?
Those questions, as they are at almost every club, remain unanswered. But Villa’s recent activity behind the scenes suggests that the owners’ ambition is not yet waning in the slightest.
Aston Villa push to delay key vote in Man City’s row with the Premier League
When talking about the current governance issues behind the scenes at the Premier League at the moment, the same phrase keeps cropping up.
Civil war.
Taking place in the background to Man City’s ongoing battle with the Premier League over their 115 alleged financial offences is the reigning champions countersuit over the league’s APT rules.
Associated Party Transactions (APTs) are commercial deals struck by clubs with entities linked to their owners which must be assessed for fair market value in order to stop clubs gaming the PSR system.
Villa were broadly supportive of City in their challenge to the Premier League’s APT rules but – unlike Everton, Newcastle United and Chelsea – stopped short of giving evidence in favour of them.
As a result of some of City’s successes in that tribunal, the Premier League is now being forced to rewrite its APT rules and is set to put the revised version to a vote on Friday.
However, City are insisting that the process has been rushed and are urging fellow clubs to lobby to postpone the vote.
Now, The Telegraph are reporting that Villa are backing City in this enterprise.
Nassef Sawiris’ Abu Dhabi links: Why are Villa backing Man City?
Villa are disenfranchised with the PSR system of which the APT rules play an indirect part and proposed to raise the three-year loss limit from £105m to £135m over the summer.
That motion was unsuccessful, with just one other club supporting it, so Villa may be attempting to find another way to carve out more PSR headroom in supporting a more relaxed APT system.
Another school of thought is that Sawiris has formed an unofficial alliance City’s Abu Dhabi owners.
In December, Sawiris will move his family offices to the UAE, effectively changing the seat of his £6.8bn fortune.
In July, The Telegraph observed the following in a report about the closeting relations between City and Villa: [Sawiris] is believed to enjoy a warm relationship with City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak, which is only expected to grow closer as he spends more time in his new adopted working home.’
