Scott Duxbury Interview - Ftre

I hope you stop wallowing in your own bile.

 

It's a nice story to tell after the event.

 

Seriously what loanees are you referring to? Cucho. Dahlberg. There is no other loanee of any other substance so he’s talking nonsense.

 

You have so much blind faith. Maybe you are right. But based on their activities and the state of our balance sheet I don’t trust them.

Agree to disagree?

 

Any team relegated has to readjust their finances on relegation. Covid just made that doubley challenging.
They could have done a Norwich and just not invested and accepted relegation.

 

Why are you getting so transfixed on the value of our loanees ? It was just one of many points made and he just said we had additional assets outside the WFC squad and mentioned that last summer we raised funds from selling 2.

 

Who is in a better financial state right now. Norwich with one year of premier league money and bounce back. Or Pozzo with 5 years of money, all his player trading and a bounce back?

The point is Pozzo has squandered vast amounts of income over the years while simultaneously incurring debt against many of our assets and income streams. How much of this has ended up at Udinese who knows, but the balance sheet and borrowing speaks for itself.

We have different views on his performance so guess we will need to disagree. Hopefully he can pull a rabbit out of the hat this year.

 

I was transfixed because he specifically said we have lots of assets out on loan. When questioned on that I think we can all agree this is a nonsense point.

Jon G can talk of mystery on loan assets. I’ll quote the accounts. Guess people can make up their minds who has more evidence.

 

Norwich are.
Of course they are. They didn’t invest so were relegated.
If we want just one off isolated one year spells in the prem then Norwich is the way to go. Get promoted and pocket the cash.
If we want to try to strengthen to survive for a few seasons we need to spend what we can to invest in the squad.
If the sole objective is to stockpile cash then yes we have got it all wrong the last 5-6 years.

 

Of course we have lots of assets out on loan. We do, it’s fact. Who knows what they are all worth today or will become worth but you mentioned at least 2 who are worth something.

 

Errr.... All I've asked was for you to show the workings behind your argument that the Pozzos are systematically transferring a portion of the club's income to Udinese. That's a major claim, I'm open minded - as I said, it was a genuine question.

 

I wouldn't worry about it, if I were you.

 

Care to name any? Please show me how it is a fact that we have lots of assets out of loan that currently have any transfer value whatsoever aside from Cucho and Dahlberg. Let’s say above £1m as people tell me we can sell Fletcher for £5m so that seems a low threshold. And explain to me why that justifies Pozzo borrowing against all our assets and all our revenue streams.

5 names will do. If it’s a fact we have all these assets out on loan it should not be hard.

 

Fine then.

 

I don’t understand why you want 5 loanees with values today? You’ve already named 2. Jon didn’t say 5 did he ? Why are you so obsessed with this ? They are assets because we have them on our books fir transfer or sign on fees, hopefully some will generate value like Cucho, Dahlberg, Suarez and Esta, many of course won’t.
If Pozzo didn’t borrow secured against our assets we wouldn’t have been able to finance a 5 year stay in the PL and compete with bigger clubs. It’s clear you’d rather they hadn’t and have just dropped straight back as we had the last 2 times. Maybe you’ll get your wish this time and we will barely invest in the current starting 11 drop down but have very little debt.

 

I don’t disagree with some of that - but the last set of figures showed we were practically mortgaged to the eyeballs. Everything has more or less been borrowed against - and since then, we have been relegated and almost our entire revenue stream disappeared. What little income we had (1st year parachute payments), we took a loan out on.

What else do you propose we borrow against?

And Estupinan and Suarez had gone away and made a name for themselves. Who else do we have on loan that we can cash in on and make good money? Pussetto will go to Udinese and that money may as well not exist as it sits against both clubs. Cucho? Maybe but he won’t generate near what those two above did as he hasn’t had the impact. Dahlberg? He won’t make much. Who else?

The fact that ‘nor is any club’ in good shape is not really relevant to our situation though. I doubt a lot of them entered the last 12-18 months as financially perilous as we did. The evidence is all there.

 

Okay so a long winded way of you agreeing we have no significant loan assets. Glad we agree on reality.

 

If we spend 5 of each 6 seasons in the Prem for a while that's way better than being up and down every season.

I don't think he mentioned wanting to be a yo-yo club in the latter sense.

 

Dalglish for one.

 

Compared to lots of clubs we're amateurs at squandering money.

Man Utd, West Ham, Everton, Arsenal, Newcastle, and Fulham are all far better at pouring money down the drain on big money transfers that don't work out.

E.g. Man Utd have spent an awful lot on centre backs and still ended up without two decent ones.

 

Only reason I took it that way is it doesn't really make sense otherwise. We've continued to buy younger players with potential post Richarlison, e.g. Pedro, and we signed a decent number of experienced pros in our first season in the prem: Prodl, Britos, Nyom, Capoue, Behrami, etc. Focusing on the Premier League years, it's difficult to see any change in our recruitment strategy with respect to the age of those we were signing.

 

That's true, but quite a few of those either have extremely rich owners perfectly happy to spaff money up the wall without asking for it back, or are so historically enormous and commercially significant globally that they are essentially insulated financially from even the venal/comedy incompetence of their current ownership structure.

 

Long term, now we are back in the Prem, very possibly. Using debt to generate value is a long-term project for any business. There may be challenges along the way (Covid has been such a challenge for many businesses) but you adjust your strategy to deal with them. That’s what we did, and we’re back on track. Not every decision is correct, but so long as the majority are, the business will grow. Looking at the business long-term, from where we were when the Pozzos took over until now, they have clearly grown the business. The strategy seems to be working.

 

I’ll ask again, do you run your business debt-free?

 

Nope, because I don’t track their progress obsessively. It’s not my job. Not is it yours. We’re both essentially guessing. The difference is that I trust those who have taken our club this far to know what they are doing, based on the evidence of the last eight years overall, whereas you do not, based on an incomplete reading of a balance sheet.

 

So blind trust is more accurate than taking time to look at Watford’s balance sheet? Obviously I can’t argue with that so let’s leave it there!

 

Jon G = Duxbury

 

It’s a bit bizarre when the term Blind faith is used in relation to the management of our club. I’m
Not going to bother pointing out all they’ve given us over the last 9 years and how they’ve taken us straight back up which under the circumstances is possibly their biggest achievement.

I don’t think faith in someone who has consistently delivered can be described as ‘blind’, but then there seem to be a lot of references to how some how the ownership is on trial and still need to prove themselves.

 

Your username says it all.

 

The onfield achievements cannot be argued with, especially as you say the construction of a squad capable of bouncing back. The negative is the extent of the financial risks we have taken and where we would have been if we had slipped into playoffs and lost.

I’m happy to laud the on-field achievements, but if I raise the financial aspect some people just put their fingers in their ears. Maybe one is not possible without the other but I think it is unhealthy to ignore the extent of debt the owners have generated, and not scrutinise inter club activity.

I don’t want to drag the thread in circles so let’s enjoy the weekend.

 

Not sure you understood then. Just to confirm in fewer words as long paragraphs seems to confuse you. We have many many loan assets of varying values including a La Liga striker and a Swedish international(?) keeper.

 

So again you agree. £20m max value?

 

Agreed. It’s amusing how some on here seem to understand our finances better than the club themselves. There’s really nothing too confusing. The club used all means to compete with clubs that have superior finances and supporter base. All clubs relegated from the prem need to cut costs to realign with their new lower revenue. Covid could not have been forseen and could have left things pretty tight for us but fortunately with limited sales and players from Udinese we can reset.

 

Blind trust? Where did I say that? I said I’d looked at the growth of the club over the last eight years - the value of the players, the value of the squad, the value of the ground, the value of the training ground, the place in the premier league and the increase in brand value that has brought us. All of that is evidence of the long-term success of the project. The balance sheet merely provides a snapshot of the present, but must be contextualised within the long-term strategy. It is basic business planning. Do you not do it with your business?