Thursday 19 May 2016 17:38, UK
New Aston Villa owner Tony Xia says he will spend between £30m and £40m during the transfer window on new players.
The Recon Group, owned by the Chinese businessman Xia, bought the relegated Premier League club on Wednesday from Randy Lerner.
Recon Group is Dr Xia's privately owned holding company that owns the controlling interest in five publicly-listed companies on the Hong Kong and Chinese stock exchanges and many other private companies employing 35,000 people in 75 countries.
The deal is for 100 per cent ownership and will go through subject to approval by the Premier League and Football League.
It is understood that Roberto Di Matteo is the preferred candidate for the manager's job and has already spoken to chairman Steve Hollis and departing owner Randy Lerner and will next speak with Xia next week.
And Xia says he is willing to spend large sums of money on players during the transfer window to help get Aston Villa straight back up into the Premier League.
"If Aston Villa can return to the Premier League, the purchase price would be more than £100m," he told Sky Sports News HQ.
"The prize would be at least £75m [if Villa could not get back to the Premier League]. Now we plan to spend £30m to £40m on new players for the upcoming season to reconstruct the current first team squad."
