Aston Villa have lost out on '£50m' from player who was going leave straight after Youri Tielemans
Amadou Onana’s ACL injury has been the “biggest blow” for Aston Villa amid a rocky few weeks.
That is according to Villa chief executive Keith Wyness, speaking exclusively to Football Insider, who believes that the Belgian’s injury will have a bigger impact at Villa Park than Youri Tielemans’ departure.
The midfielder ruptured his ACL in his country’s last 16 win over USA at the World Cup, and is now facing a prolonged injury lay-off.
Wyness believes that his former club were planning to sell the 24-year-old prior to his injury, but will now be unable to do so.
Onana’s injury has provided a setback for Unai Emery in terms of the squad’s midfield depth, and Tielemans’ move to Manchester United has now exacerbated that further.
Both players made 25 appearances in the Premier League last season, and have been key men for Villa in recent seasons.
Aston Villa have lost ‘£50m’ through Amadou Onana injury
Villa’s former chief Wyness – who served as CEO at Villa Park between 2016 and 2018 and now runs a consultancy business advising elite clubs – believes that his former club could have made up to £50million from selling Onana this summer.
They only got £35m for Tielemans, but a sale of Onana as well would have gone a long way towards easing their financial issues.
Speaking on the latest edition of Football Insider’s Inside Track podcast, Wyness emphasised that the injury has been the biggest hit for Villa in recent weeks.
“Look, the Onana injury to me is really the biggest blow of the whole Villa situation because I think they were planning on getting some money for him,” he said.
“He was going to be going, and I think that would have been another £40m, possibly £50m coming in, and that together with the Tielemans money would have been significant and enough to bring in the quality they're looking for.
“An extra £35m is obviously very helpful for Villa, who are right on that borderline. But it's not going to be the game-changing amount.”
Villa trapped by ‘misplaced’ UEFA rule
Wyness told Football Insider earlier this week that both Villa and Newcastle are trapped by UEFA’s “misplaced” financial rules, that have seen both clubs hit with significant fines of late.
The Scottish businessman believes that the governing body’s football earnings rule and their squad-cost ratio are unfairly prohibitive to certain clubs.
He feels that they prevent clubs like Villa and Newcastle, who have wealthy owners that are willing to spend, from progressing to challenge the established elite.
Villa have just been hit with a fresh £19m fine from UEFA, and although £12.9m of it is suspended, it is likely to come into play this time next year.