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Alla Zakarian

06-05-2020 | 13:55 Football
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Villa chief Christian Purslow comes out against playing in neutral grounds: "Relegation is a £200m catastrophe for us"

Aston Villa followed the footsteps of Brighton as their chief executive Christian Purslow announced, they are against the idea of finishing the season at neutral grounds. Premier League clubs currently discuss the option of resuming the season, which was suspended due to coronavirus pandemic. Brighton, as well as Aston Villa, fight to avoid relegation and they don't want to give up the home advantage. Villa chief Purslow told TalkSport on Wednesday: "Personally I am against it. We are a club that prides itself on home form. Two-thirds of our wins this season came at home. We have six left. Giving up that advantage is a massive decision and I certainly wouldn't agree to it unless the circumstances are right. My duty is to my club. "The financial equation at the bottom of the table is really rather different to the top. Losses the big six are suffering run to tens of millions of pounds and the restart is a project designed to recoup some of the losses we are suffering. But at the bottom it's different. None of us are playing in Europe. None of us are generating millions on match day. It's a much smaller revenue base and the risk of relegation is probably a £200m catastrophe for any club that mathematically could still go down. "So when you say to a club near the bottom we want you to agree to a bunch of rule changes that may make it more likely that you may get relegated they are thinking about agreeing to something that may lose them £200m. There are no rights and wrongs here. Every club has to protect its own financial position and they are wildly different. Nobody is pretending there is not a focus on protecting our revenue." Purslow also stated that the idea of restarting the season is "hypothetical". "I want to be crystal clear on this. The restart has a basic principle, until we have health and safety protocols in place that have to be agreed by government and key players then the restart is entirely hypothetical and not there yet. We haven't yet got to the crucial protocols that relate to playing football so unless we crack the code to make the game safe, it's hypothetical." Source: Daily Mail 

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