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Villa owner exits UK but affirms his support for club

Nassef Sawiris, who is Egypt’s richest man and co-owner of Aston Villa, has told the Financial Times that he recently moved his residency from London to Italy and Abu Dhabi.  In an interview at his long-standing office overlooking Mayfair’s Berkeley Square that he has since vacated, he said the decision to move abroad after 15 years of living in the UK was due to a government crackdown on non-domiciled residents announced by the previous Tory administration.

Sawiris, whose net worth was estimated at $9bn by Forbes, is the youngest son of the late Onsi Sawiris, who founded a construction company in the 1950s and built it over decades into a large multinational corporation now called Orascom Construction. As the business grew, the family diversified, entering the cement industry and expanding operations from Egypt into other emerging markets.

The UK “gave me a home when the Muslim Brotherhood came to Egypt and I will always be in debt”, he said. “I’m keeping my house, I’m growing my investment in Aston Villa, looking at expanding the stadium. And it hasn’t changed my love for this country.”

Exiting UK taxpayers face limits on how much time they can return to spend in the country each year, in many cases 90 days annually, with just 30 days permitted for work. Sawiris will use some of those days to visit and attend matches of at Aston Villa, which exited the Champions League last week despite a spirited attempted comeback in the second leg of the quarter-final against Qatar-owned Paris Saint-Germain.   The club is supported by the Prince of Wales.

He and US billionaire Wes Edens, co-founder of Fortress Investment Group, acquired a 55 per cent stake in the club for £30mn in 2018, rescuing it from financial crisis and returning it to the Premier League, where the team currently sits in seventh place.

Sawiris and his partners have invested heavily into the football club to improve performance. However, the club is not yet profitable and previously sold young players to comply with Premier League financial regulations that limit how much teams are allowed to lose.

Sawiris has complained that the rules are anti-competitive and prevent challenger clubs from closing the gap with the likes of Manchester City and Liverpool.   He told the Pink 'Un, “The Premier League is under the impression that what makes it great is Manchester United and Liverpool and Chelsea and Arsenal, so they have to cater for these guys. But what makes the Premier League great is that Manchester United get their butts kicked by Brighton.”

Aston Villa will see the capacity of its stadium boosted to more than 50,000 seats from current levels of 42,000, as part of a plan by Sawiris to invest around £100mn more into the team. However, development is pending local officials moving ahead with expanding rail links.

 

 

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