Randy Lerner is the American billionaire owner and chairman of Aston Villa football club. He is the son of Al Lerner the founder of insurance and credit giants MBNA and since his fathers death in 2002 has inherited the company as well as the Cleveland Browns NFL franchise and an estimated personal fortune of £1bn.

He bought the club from ‘Deadly’ Doug Ellis in august 2006 for an initial outlay of £62.5m and took full control in september that year when he gained 90% of the shares. His interest in Villa is said to have started in the early 80’s when he was studying in England for a year though he also admits he followed Fulham and Arsenal. He has become a popular figure at Villa park after drinking pints of bitter with the fans, making a u-turn on modest training ground plans boost them to a new state of the art facility and restoring the famous Holte pub for an estimated cost of £4m.

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