Gino’s Belgian Agent Mate - Match Fixing? Money Laundering?

Discussion in 'The Hornets' Nest - Watford Chat' started by Burnsy, Oct 10, 2018.

  1. Burnsy

    Burnsy First Team

    https://news.sky.com/story/top-belg...ided-amid-match-fixing-investigation-11522708

    Okay I admit, perhaps a misleading thread title but Oulare’s name is quoted in the article as being involved, but I can’t quite figure out from the wording whether they are intimating that he’s involved or just associated with the matter!

    Also - seems to be his agent who is the key player in the issue. Mogi Bayat? Is that Gino’s belgian friend?!
     
  2. tonycotonstache

    tonycotonstache Squad Player

    Explains a lot.....
     
  3. Burnsy

    Burnsy First Team

    A very interesting thread on the matter on Twitter by @Razzerian

    Two snippets:
    @Razzerian -
    There were also 13 house searches abroad. Mogi Bayat has a widespread network of clubs with whom he frequently does business, including Premier League side Watford and Serie A side Udinese.

    @Razzerian
    The match fixing investigations seem to mainly involve the relegation zone whilst the money laundering goes from top to bottom, including clubs abroad. Mogi Bayat however seems to be at the center of both investigations. Which goes further than the Belgian borders.
     
  4. Jumbolina

    Jumbolina First Team

    Yep Mogi Bayat is the one who Pozzo throws money at for utter tat players.
     
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  5. Hornet4ever

    Hornet4ever WFC Forums Last Man Standing Winner 2018/2019

    Mogi is smarter than the average bear.
     
  6. The undeniable truth

    The undeniable truth First Team Captain

    Incredible though it might sound, I believe this guy once got him a contract with a premier league team as a professional footballer. If that isn't evidence of some form of corruption/wrong doing/money laundering, I don't know what is.
     
  7. oxhey67

    oxhey67 Squad Player

    Hmm. Looks like Lukebakio's loan lends lucre laundering inklings to lawmakers.
     
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  8. Arakel

    Arakel First Team

    Makes sense. I mean, how else can you justify Kabasele being in the team?
     
  9. Guy

    Guy Squad Player

    Done us over a few times this agent
     
  10. luke_golden

    luke_golden Space Cadet

    Can’t overlook the possibility that Gino tipped the authorities off as payback for Oulare.
     
    Burnsy likes this.
  11. Steve Leo Beleck

    Steve Leo Beleck Squad Player

    Kabasele, Oulare, Lukebakio, the legend that was Sven Kums.

    He ripped us off with Oulare.
    Lukebakio was signed from Charleroi where Bayat's brother is the sporting director. He was on loan there from Anderlecht but Charleroi bought him permanently then immediately sold him to us at a profit.
    Sven Kums signed for us from Gent, loaned to Udinese, sold back to Anderlecht.

    We also only got Okaka from Anderlecht as the same day Udinese sent a striker called Hamdi Harbaoui there. His agent? Mogi Bayat. Additionally, Harbaoui had only signed for Udinese a few weeks beforehand.

    Some pretty odd transfer goings on in that bunch...
     
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  12. Jumbolina

    Jumbolina First Team

    Best thing about all this nonsense is that everyone assumed it was a long game to get Dendonker (who also looks like a Bayat dud) and then he f*cked off to Wolves while budget Pozzo was trying to take Arter and Livermore on loan.
     
    oxhey67 likes this.
  13. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    Weird transfer dealings are not in themselves illegal unless there is fraud - i.e. a club's officers arrange for the club to buy players it should never buy because they will gain personally. Taking up options and then selling them is another facet to football's weird money game as is the hingeing of one deal on another - we got Britos as some peculiar part of a Udinese player going to Napoli IIRC. Not surprising also that Anderlecht would want a new striker to replace the goal machine that is Okaka.

    Huge fees for duds is also hardly unknown across the football world, but Kaba, Lukebakio and Kums are not and Oulare only probably is.

    Money laundering needs a criminal source for the dodgy money, drugs, counterfeit goods etc. The Pozzos have Premier League moolah to waste. Where they get their cash is not a mystery.

    There is something a bit sharp about the Pozzos, which is why we like them, but organised crime?..that's something else...
     
  14. Steve Leo Beleck

    Steve Leo Beleck Squad Player

    Conspiracy to defraud tax authorities would also count as a criminal source of money. It doesn't have to be something like drugs or counterfeiting.

    I'm surprised that an avowed socialist such as yourself would have such faith in multi millionaires not needing to commit financial crime as they have plenty of moolah!

    Giampaolo was banned for a period from being Udinese chairman after a match fixing scandal.
    The Pozzos have been investigated for tax evasion in Italy (2014) and twice in Spain (2016 and 2018).
    Raffaele Riva submitted a forged letter to the EFL about Gino's finances.
    Quique Pina who was the chairman at Granada for the Pozzos, was charged in Spain with tax fraud and money laundering relating to his time at Granada.
    An agent that the Pozzos seem to deal with more frequently than any other is arrested for tax fraud and money laundering in Belgium.

    I would be amazed if the transfers with Bayat, Watford and Udinese aren't investigated as part of this most recent probe. That's not to say there will be any evidence of wrongdoing, just that it would be wholly negligent not to look at them given the circumstances.
     
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  15. Oscar calling

    Oscar calling Squad Player

    We are doomed.
     
  16. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    You don’t need to launder money from tax fraud, but thanks anyway for the patronising post. My point was simply there are other sources for their money and they don’t need organised crime. Never suggested they weren’t a bit dodgy.
     
  17. Steve Leo Beleck

    Steve Leo Beleck Squad Player

    Yes you do. Modern money laundering offences are very broadly defined. It's the concealing, moving, retention, converting of the gains from a tax fraud that would constitute the money laundering. It's some way away from the traditional notion of money laundering as organised crime gangs putting profits through legitimate businesses to make the money clean.
     
  18. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    Suggest how that may have worked in any transfer involving WFC? Who may have been defrauding and how did they realise the gain?
     
  19. Hornet4ever

    Hornet4ever WFC Forums Last Man Standing Winner 2018/2019

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  20. Burnsy

    Burnsy First Team

    Very interesting. Doesn't make out that we didn't anything wrong or below the belt - but not sure how comfortable we should be that our club and its premises seem to be a staging post for such activities.
     
  21. Ray Knight

    Ray Knight First Year Pro

    This is just plain funny. Oulare is the one committing the fraud by masquerading as a footballer. That guy has done little for Watford or on loan. His agent could well be dodgy but come on he is still well paid for doing nothing. Making out Watford are responsible is somewhat wide of the mark without any hard evidence of wrongdoing. Transfer of players is clearly a meat market on deadline day...But Didn't we know that already?
     
  22. Burnsy

    Burnsy First Team

    I’m not sure if you’ve misread my post if you’re saying that I’m suggesting Watford have acted poorly? I can’t quite tell!

    I’m just saying that the way the article is written and quotes given, suggest that Gino has allowed the training ground and/or his office to be a de-facto base for these ‘strange’ dealings with the clubs money running through the middle. I’m sure it’s all above board on our side of the fence but I’m not sure about the other side of it and the morals of the situation as a whole.

    As regards Oulare - he has been a spectacular waste of money. But I think you are too harsh. It seems he, as a young man, and his parents have been duped by middle-men and low-moralled Belgian club officials into the bright lights of the PL and money that simply wouldnt have been on offer by keeping the status quo of staying put. I don’t think there can be any doubt the lad wanted to be a footballer. All jokes aside, it’s wrong to say he’s committed fraud as he was just a young lad who made a poor career choice - can anyone here honestly say they 100% wouldn’t have done the same in the circumstances? Lord knows he’s paying the ultimate price for that decision now. To blame Oulare for coming here and the fallout that’s happened since is not on him. The club ‘scouted’ him, the club paid his ‘agents’ and the club paid the fee. If he was a talented lad who didn’t produce, fine. But he was clearly not that so I lay minimal blame at his door.
     
  23. zztop

    zztop Eurovision Winner 2015

    It seems to me that the club are massively at fault. Whether it is some form of shenanigans, or just plain incompetence, I'm not sure.

    But, it is bad. I just hope it is the latter, as if there is anything that is going to put me off the club I've supported for years it is this gradual trickle of suggestions of dodgy dealing.
     
    Last edited: Oct 19, 2018
  24. We hate 48

    We hate 48 Reservist

    It says he knows Giampaolo Pozzo very well as he is the Watford owner-but he isn't his son is
     
  25. Cassetti's Beard

    Cassetti's Beard First Team

    Slightly unnerving

    I'm sure Pozzo and Co have already removed every bit of paperwork and wiped down the offices at the training ground like a crime scene. Just in case.
     
    Burnsy likes this.
  26. RookeryDad

    RookeryDad Squad Player

    Time to reopen the Stewart Scullion casebook?

    He left & came back 5 minutes later.

    Am I the only one to have an image of Ken Furphy pulling into Scratchwood Services, a light sweat crowning his brow, mentally measuring up the glove compartment of his Rover 2000?

    Will it take the envelope?
     
    zztop likes this.
  27. zztop

    zztop Eurovision Winner 2015

    Isn't that when he had Cliff Holton in the boot?
     
  28. Aberystwyth_Hornet

    Aberystwyth_Hornet Squad Player

    It wouldn't be a Watford season without an off field transfer scandal in October /November. Happens every year.
     
  29. Ray Knight

    Ray Knight First Year Pro

    Our persecution of Silva and Everton. Must be time for that golden nugget to resurface. Much indignation from Linekar and the blue-noses as to why we are being so vindictive.
     
  30. Burnsy

    Burnsy First Team

  31. Sahorn

    Sahorn Reservist

    Russian oligarchs and Arab sheiks, not our close European friends, surely?
     
  32. Hornet4ever

    Hornet4ever WFC Forums Last Man Standing Winner 2018/2019

    I think I can already feel a points deduction looming somewhere down the line!
     
  33. Teide1

    Teide1 Squad Player

    Ken Furphy said on the big match " Barry Endean had the acceleration of his Rover three and a half " to which Jimmy Hill said no advertising Mr Furphy, are you saying he had two cars, if so were the tax authorities aware?
     
    RookeryDad likes this.
  34. Hornet4ever

    Hornet4ever WFC Forums Last Man Standing Winner 2018/2019

    This view is sponsored by HSBC in association with Photoshop.
     
  35. RookeryDad

    RookeryDad Squad Player

    Brilliant.

    My old man had a Rover.

    We were on first name terms with every AA patrolman south of Carlisle.
     

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