Villa's UEFA Chess Game, Virtual Villa Park Experiences and Long Sleeves
AVWTF16
Greetings,
Welcome to latest AVWTF.
With Aston Villa’s annual pilgrimage to the Bescott over, the 2025/26 season is now up and running in earnest for Unai Emery’s men. After the club’s recent brush with UEFA - and despite dodging a PSR bullet thanks to some Chelsea-like manoeuvring by weaponising the Women’s team on the spreadsheet - it’s certainly going to be an intriguing season for both Emery and Monchi to navigate.
We’ll focus on what it means for Villa’s summer transfer window first, before taking a look at the potential evolution of how you can actually watch Villa, if you can’t make it in person to Villa Park.
UEFA Rules Turn Villa’s Transfer Window Into a Game of Chess
I knew in May that an UEFA fine was incoming. The club had informed the Fan Advisory Board, that the owners had basically decided to take it on the chin. If you go back to December 2024, the football department were concerned at the time by a big drop off by their forward players, and it was obviously threatening the ambition of the season.
Despite the wage bill being high and the club in danger of breaching the new UEFA wage-to-income ratio rule, the owners decided to roll the dice on the substantial wages of both Marcus Rashford and Marco Asensio to fire up the team again. The aim was obviously to give them a chance of progressing in the Champions League (getting through to the last 16 round, basically covered the eventual UEFA fine) and rekindle the challenge in the league to qualify again for Europe’s top tournament.
While they ultimately came up short, you could perhaps say the gamble overall hit par, with decent revenue from a deep run in the Champions League and qualifying for the Europa League, which before the turn of the year, wasn’t exactly looking likely.
Aston Villa’s recent settlement with UEFA wasn’t just a slap on the wrist though - it’s a warning shot. The club has been fined €11m (£9.5m) for breaching key financial rules relating to both their wage-to-income ratio (squad cost) and improper financial adjustments in their accounting. A further suspended €15m (£13m) fine hangs in the balance over the next three years, conditional on Villa toeing the line.
For the 2024/25 season, Villa needed to have a wages to revenue ratio under 80%, which they failed to do. This year, the ratio will settle at its permanent level of 70%, after a soft launch that started at 90% in 2023/24 (when Villa were in the Conference League).
So, what does this mean for the summer transfer window?
In short: every move must be calculated, strategic, and, crucially, revenue-backed.
Under UEFA’s rules, Aston Villa must now demonstrate a positive net spend if they want to register any new players for the Europa League. No player can come in unless someone goes out first - and for the right fee. This rules out speculative spending or gambling on potential - the club must now think three moves ahead.
Selling the Women’s team helped with the Premier League’s Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR), but UEFA explicitly does not allow intra-group asset sales to count. That loophole is shut - so selling training grounds to sister companies or creative swaps won’t work here.
Villa’s summer strategy must focus on three key ideas:
Smart Sales – Offloading players not just to free up wages, but to finance compliant acquisitions.
Squad Cost Discipline – Wages and amortised transfer fees must now aim to be below 70% of club income.
Registering Rights at Risk – Fail to comply, and Villa can’t register their shiny new signings for European football.
So, if you’ve noticed a slower pace in transfer news from Villa Park, this is why. It’s not hesitation - it’s caution. Every move this summer will need to be surgically precise. The club has learned from its Champions League gamble. Now, it’s about maximising value and staying in the game.
A big name coming in? Someone will have to leave.
A big wage offer? It’ll need to be backed by outgoings.
Europa League ambition? Only possible with financial discipline.
This isn’t just a transfer window. It’s checkmate or bust.
For further discussion of how the UEFA ruling impacts the club in more practical players terms listen to our discussion on it on the latest My Old Man Said podcast on Apple, Spotify or any good podcast app.
Villa Park… But Make It Sci-Fi
While most of us for the first home game of last season against Arsenal, were stuck in long queues due to the club’s migration to digital ticketing, and navigating overflowing urinals in the Holte, some of our friends stateside were having a very novel and futuristic experience.
That same game became the first Aston Villa match to be screened at a COSM venue - on what can only be described as a stadium-sized screen. COSM’s Los Angeles site is built around an 87ft wraparound fine-pitch LED screen, housed in a 9,600-square-foot dome that physically places fans inside the match. There are no edges, no frames - just football enveloping your vision. It’s not watching a match, it’s living inside one. Surround sound, multiple replay angles, the glisten of sweat on John McGinn’s forehead - it’s the closest thing to Villa Park on the other side of the Atlantic. COSM currently operates in Los Angeles and Dallas, with Detroit and Atlanta next on the radar.
Even more intriguing for Villa fans in the UK is that COSM’s CEO, Jeb Terry, is said to be scouting London for a venue. A visit took place in April, and partnerships and locations are now being explored to bring the experience across the pond.
With 500 seats at venues, fans have been booking booths and bringing flags, trying to create an atmosphere, as if they’re on an away day.
It’s certainly a GA++ price though, when you compare just turning up to your local pub. The price for general admission (standing) is $22, while higher levels with booths can be $66 to $83 a ticket. A Eight-Seater Party Booth will set you back $352 in total.
Would you pay that amount? Maybe a one-off experience?
Virtual Villa Park
In a previous newsletter, I referenced a talk that ex-Villa CEO Keith Wyness did to some Sports Business students. In that, he also mentioned that Villa had been in talks with Nokia regarding virtual reality season tickets for Chinese spectators.
“We did experiments. I realised in China, virtual reality had been adopted more than any other country in the world, so we worked with Nokia on new cameras for virtual reality, and we were on the verge of selling season tickets for virtual reality headsets in China . We were way ahead of the game.”
I also wrote about the potential of a virtual Villa Park in the metaverse, a couple of years ago in a wtf newsletter. The hype around the metaverse has since quietened, as Donald Trump and Wall Street have subverted the crypto space and derailed its four-year cycle. Still, the idea will resurface soon enough. Monetising international fanbases remains a top priority for clubs, and this kind of technology has real potential to be a game changer in generating new revenue streams.
Regardless of how the evolution comes, the accessibility and cost of suitable interfaces to such technology is always a stumbling block in terms of delivering a good customer/fan experience.
The advantage of the huge wrapped screens seems to give you a similar immersive experience akin to being in the stadium to some degree, while also giving you the community aspect that headsets and personal screens don’t provide.
There are huge screens in the old Holte Suite, now the Lower Grounds, which have been used for away game screenings, especially for European ties. More interesting though is whether The Warehouse building at Villa Park, that should open later this year in December, will bring any invocation or wow factor to the table. Hopefully, they’ll take it beyond just replicating the Box Park model.
With technology redefining how fans experience football, Villa now has a real opportunity to think bigger than beer halls and basic big screens. The future of watching Villa doesn’t just mean being in the ground, and it’ll be interesting to see how close to feeling like you are, we get.
Retro Deal
While the Y2K bug never happened when 1999 turned to 2000, during the time, Villa’s kit did glitch into two stripy numbers that provided the team with a fresh new look. With the home shirt boasting broader stripes than the Muller shirts of 1993-95, could you imagine the meltdown on social media, if it existed then, for such a bold direction.
Very much the shirt of Dublin, Carbone, Taylor, Joachim and Boateng, the retro version of the shirt is now available to buy.
If you’re interested, while the club are selling it at £45, the long established 3Retro are selling it for £40 and if you use the code 3RETRO10, you can get it for £36. There’s free postage on orders of £60 and over too.
Check it out here - 3 RETRO
Speaking of shirts, what do you think about the new Villa home shirt released this week? There’s finally a long sleeve option, something, if I’m not mistaken, supporters haven’t seen since Macron supplied the kits. I remember picking up a long-sleeve white away shirt for £10 in the sale. This new one… is a bit more than that!
Check out the new home range
Thanks for reading and make sure you’re subscribed for the next edition. Take care out there.
UTV
David
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PS - P.S. You might remember I mentioned a free retro football manager mobile game a while back in AVWTF. There’s a 2025 update now out - so you can play with Unai Emery’s current squad and manage Villa in Europe - check out the 2025 version here.