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V Sports may see the purchase of FC Annecy Aston Villa The player will be leaving for the French club in the near future.

sport.fr report Annecy have set their sights higher thanks to their new relationship with Aston Villa via V Sports.

aston villa investment

Sport Witness covered a report yesterday It was revealed that Aston Villa owner V Sport has acquired a 30% minority stake in the French club.

Sport.fr explains that this was done through a capital increase that values ​​the Savoyard club at around €15m. To his knowledge, no one actually saw the investment coming.

The partnership has been working behind the scenes thanks to an already well-established collaboration. Aston Villa sent young players on loan, shared ways and common ambitions.

Now the partnership is official, but nothing will change from the government’s side. Sébastien Faraglia remains chairman, Philippe Rey-Gorez is still the majority shareholder, and Laurent Guyot continues to manage the team.

Focus on youth development

Instead the center of the project will be youth development. And Annecy is planning to build a brand new training center to aid the process. This could see the Aston Villa youngster move to France on loan to aid his development.

This is something they have done with other partnerships. For example, many youngsters have spent time at Unai Emery’s Real Union. Plans may already be underway on that front, placing youth at the center of the project.

For Annecy, the ‘dream of reaching the top flight’ is getting closer. For him it is a process that is ‘slowly but surely’. They finished seventh in Ligue 2 last season and are now promoted. Only four points separated them from the top six and eight from the top four.

The investment from Aston Villa owners V Sports is prompting them to dream big anyway, even if their focus will be on youth development for the time being.

We’re three days away from the 2026 NHL trade deadline. The New Jersey Devils are in a precarious position, with the possibility of them missing the playoffs after a disappointing 2025-26 season that had a lot of expectations. Heading into Friday’s deadline, it appears defenseman Simon Nemec is generating Devils trade interest.

According to Pierre LeBrun, NHL Insider, “It will be interesting to see what happens on the Simon Nemec front. The Devils are taking a call on the second overall pick from ’22. There’s no shortage of teams investigating. New Jersey is happy to keep him, but if a deal comes along that upgrades their forward in a real way, they’re going to be listening…”

Nemec improved his stock significantly this season, scoring some clutch goals to either send New Jersey to overtime, or win a game in extra frames.

He then went on to the Olympics where he played top pairing, No. 1 defenseman minutes for Slovakia and played his part in almost helping Slovakia get a medal and surprisingly finish fourth in the tournament.

General manager Tom Fitzgerald has been open about his desire to add a forward. The Devils continue to look for a top-line solution to play alongside Jack Hughes and Jesper Bratt.

“I’d like to add further. I want to continue to add more depth,” Fitzgerald said in January. “I think the whole league is probably looking for the same thing. You can figure it out. But you know, that hasn’t changed from two summers ago. We tried to add last deadline. When you’re just trying to add you, you identify those areas and stick your nose down hard and do the work.”

Dougie Hamilton is another name on the Devils trade block. He has generated considerable interest, however, his $9 million cap hit has proven difficult to exceed, especially with his $7.4 million bonus due on July 1.

The Devils appear to be following the path of least resistance with a ton of defensemen at their disposal, but perhaps too many of them have trade protection.

We’ll see what happens between now and Friday.

James is the fully certified New Jersey Devils beat reporter for New Jersey Hockey Now on SportsNote and … More about James Nicholls