Aston Villa owner Tony Xia is unhappy with rules surrounding young players.
Aston Villa owner Tony Xia has taken to Twitter to plead for more rules against ‘cultivating young players’ amid speculation over Rushian Hepburn-Murphy’s future.
Villa have made a bright start to life under new manager Steve Bruce, winning three and drawing two of his five games in charge, but not everything is perfect for owner Xia just yet.
General view of Villa Park
Xia took to Twitter over the weekend to state that it’s more important for the FA or the Football League to set clear rules against cultivating young players, than to implement rules regarding Financial Fair Play.
The tweet seemed to come out of the blue, but with question marks over the future of Rushian Hepburn-Murphy, the message actually made some sense.
Villa Park
Hepburn-Murphy, 18, has come up through the ranks at Villa Park, and has three first-team appearances to his name having been billed as the next big thing to come out of Villa’s academy, following on from the likes of Gary Cahill and Gareth Barry, who have both represented England.
However, the teenage attacker’s contract runs out at the end of the season, and the Daily Mail recently reported that Rangers are looking to exploit a contractual loophole to take him to Ibrox next summer.
Aston Villa owner Tony Xia
Clubs outside of England can sign out-of-contract youngsters for less than compensation than an English club, and Rangers have exploited this four times in 2016 by signing Matt Crooks, Josh Windass, Jordan Rossiter and Joe Dodoo in cut-price deals at the end of their contracts with English clubs.
Villa would receive a fraction of Hepburn-Murphy’s true worth if the striker pens a pre-contract agreement with Rangers, and having also lost Dan Crowley to Arsenal in recent years, Xia says it’s time for rules against cultivating young players.
Fans unsurprisingly responded to Xia, and felt they could read between the lines, suggesting that Xia was talking about Hepburn-Murphy’s future, with some believing that the striker is on his way out of Villa Park – hence Xia’s tweet – with others pleading with the Villa owner to make sure that Hepburn-Murphy stays, and is giving a first-team chance ahead of Gabriel Agbonlahor.
Do you think Villa will lose Hepburn-Murphy?
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