Aston Villa's current home venue is Villa Park, which is a UEFA 4-star rated stadium, having previously played at Aston Park (1874–1876) and Perry Barr (1876–1897). Villa Park is the largest football stadium in the English Midlands, and the eighth largest stadium in England. It has hosted 16 England internationals at senior level, the first in 1899, and the most recent in 2005. Thus it was the first English ground to stage international football in three different centuries.[34]
Villa Park is the most used stadium in FA Cup semi-final history, having hosted 55 semi-finals. The Club have planning permission to extend the North Stand; This will involve the 'filling in' of the corners to either side of the North Stand. If completed, the capacity of Villa Park will be increased to approximately 51,000. The current training ground is located at Bodymoor Heath in north Warwickshire, the site for which was purchased by former Villa Chairman Doug Ellis in the early 1970s from a local farmer. Although Bodymoor Heath was state-of-the-art in the 1970s, by the late 1990s the facilities had started to look dated. In November 2005, Ellis and Aston Villa plc announced a state of the art GB£13 million redevelopment of Bodymoor in 2 phases. However, work on Bodymoor was suspended by Ellis due to financial problems, and was left in an unfinished state until new owner Randy Lerner made it one of his priorities to make the site one of the best in world football. The new training ground was officially unveiled on 6 May 2007, by current manager Martin O'Neill, then team captain Gareth Barry and 1982 European Cup winning team captain Dennis Mortimer, with the Aston Villa squad moving in for the 2007–08 season.[35]
[edit] Club ownership
The first shares in the club were issued towards the end of the 19th century as a result of legislation that was intended to codify the growing numbers of professional teams and players in the Association Football leagues. FA teams were required to distribute shares to investors as a way of facilitating trading amongst the teams without implicating the FA itself. This trading continued for much of the 20th century until Ellis started buying up many of the shares in the 1960s. He was chairman and substantial shareholder of "Aston Villa F.C." from 1968–1975 and the majority shareholder from 1982–2006. The club was floated on the London Stock Exchange[36] In 2006 it was announced that several consortia and individuals were considering bids for Aston Villa.[37] (LSE) in 1996, and the share price fluctuated in the ten years after the flotation.
On 14 August 2006, it was confirmed that Randy Lerner, owner of the Cleveland Browns and native Ohioan had reached an agreement of GB£62.6 million with Aston Villa for a takeover of the club. A statement released on 25 August to the LSE announced that Lerner had secured 59.69% of Villa shares, making him the majority shareholder. He also appointed himself Chairman of the club.[38] In Ellis's last year in charge Villa lost GB£8.2m before tax, compared with a GB£3m profit the previous year, and income had fallen from GB£51.6m to GB£49m.[37][37] Randy Lerner took full control on 18 September as he had 89.69% of the shares. On 19 September 2006, Ellis and his board resigned to be replaced with a new board headed by Lerner.
[edit] Board officials
| Name | Nationality | Role |
|---|---|---|
| Randy Lerner |  United States | Chairman |
| Charles Krulak | United States | Non-Executive Director |
| Bob Kain | United States | Non-Executive Director |
| Michael E. Martin | United States | Non-Executive Director |
| Doug Ellis |  England | Lifetime President |
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