Ogi Obi

All set to sign for united according to the Nigerian press

 

Seeing as his father played for us and did very well out of it, hopefully that will sway him to sign a pro contract for us should he be offered one

 

Joined the dark side. FML

 

Hope he has a failed career and has to play for forest green rovers in a few years

 

He's just an impressionable young man making a bad decision.

It's Manchester United and the FA who are the c**ts.

 

Hope he steps on a piece of stray lego

 

Come on, no need for that.

 

He's a young kid with a opportunity to join one of the biggest footballing teams in the world, yeah sure it might be a bad choice for him but it's not Obi we should be annoyed at or wishing any harm or negative feelings to his career. This is United and the FA who let this sort of thing happen, it's their stupid rulings that make stealing a talented kid from smaller teams so easy,

I wish him all the best if he goes, if I wasn't a Watford fan and United came knocking on my door I think at his age we'd all consider it. It's down to the club, parents, family influences to try make him see that staying here is best.

 

Forgive my ignorance but didn't the Pozzo's bring him here in the first place like they did with Panos? I'm not sure WFC can even claim to have discovered him so any sour grapes probably belong in Italy. If he signs for them I reckon Man Utd will need to be generous with the compensation package or they may just find themselves missing out on important Pozzo players of the future.

 

He was in our youth academy before the Pozzos came along

 

Thanks, I was too lazy to look. But still my point stands, if Man U want future business a certain amount of respect will be needed.

 

They'll give us the absolute minimum they can under the EPPP rules, and not a penny more.

We'll get virtually nothing out of this.

 

Well, that's one player from the academy guaranteed not to forge a career in the sport.

 

EPPP just gave licence for big clubs to mug us off ..... can't imagine respect has any place in all of this

 

This us why youth football will die below premier league level. Cost of running academy versus saleable young players produced is just too expensive while the compensation payouts stay so desperately low.

Scudamore and sky are changing the face of football in this country forever.

 

then we will send them a message

 

The fact that EP3 was created by the "big 6" speaks volumes.

 

The Mirror reckons we'll get 130k compensation if he goes to United. Kerching.... :dismay:

 

250k I think .... not worth the 2m spending we'd have to commit to the academy each year

 

We were discussing that in another thread a little over a year ago. Yes, we would have got more, but not enough to have justified the extra money we would have been spending for the Cat 1 status. From memory I think it was about 50-100k more at best. When you look at nitty gritty details it doesn't make much sense at all to get Cat 1 status unless you're going to go around plundering every other club's promising youngsters; the numbers simply don't add up.

EDIT: I can't find the post, but straining my brain I think it would have worked out something like 125k extra, but we would have paid out about 5 million for the privilege (additional spending accrued from two years of mandatory Category 1 financial investment). Those numbers are a probably a bit off but not by much.

 

Basically that's all we would have got if we had gone for a better academy rating.
The other add ons for playing in the first team for Manchester United (potentially up to £1.3M) and future sell on fees (20% next transfer and 5% of all future domestic transfers) are the same for every category of academy

 

Our academy players would also be less ****, and be less likely to become mercenaries.

 

Even more exposure to the thieving PL clubs ... no thanks

 

This is why we can't have nice things...

 

The big clubs already have exposure to our players. They can contact Watford and say one of their scouts is coming down to watch our academy players train with 1 days notice and we can't do a thing about it. Any Cat 1 academy can do that to any other club at any time.

 

It's confirmed. We'll only get £130k for him. I think that's disgusting.

http://www.watfordobserver.co.uk/sport/watfordfc/watfordfcnews/11394709._/

 

Travesty.

 

So are you going to say the Pozzo's have made a mistake with this one as well? :smile:

Scandalous that EPPP forced through by the big four clubs with the Football League caving in for the scraps of TV money

 

ha ha

This one is nothing to do with the club, but the outrageous perversion of the FA and their rules which screw over every club apart from the chosen few at the top. It's a scandal.

 

That's correct but a pretty provocative way of putting it. I don't see the FL clubs had much choice as the PL not only threatened to not improve on the then current deal but also to withdraw from it altogether. The solidarity payments prop up a lot of clubs in the FL.

 

In four years time we should be a Premier League club, and he'll be on loan at Crewe and regretting the decision massively.

Life goes on. This is just a tiny snapshot of our vacuous football system. We'll survive, it's the less fortunate clubs who have to worry.

 

Clubs lower down the pyramid survive on a tiny amount of tv money compared to Championship and Premier League clubs and by selling academy players. Like Frank Smith has said on Twitter, how there wasn't an uproar in the national press over this I don't know. I suppose they're all brainwashed by the Premier League as well. Its only a matter of time before football league clubs start going bust.