[SIGNED loan] Hassane Kamara (perm Then Sold Then Loaned Back)

I get it but I honestly don't think it's as sinister as it seems. We thought we were getting for £25M for Sarr, in bizarre circumstances he's suggested not only would he stay but also sign a new deal. There's been significant interest in Kamara, this way we get to keep him for certain, and get the money to fund Sarr staying.

Once it became clear Sarr was most likely staying we definitely would need more money to fill the holes in the squad as we'd been planning for his departure. Think we'll all be pretty happy with the squad we're left with come next week, which was certainly unlikely to be the case a week ago!

 

I think we are arguing the same thing. The transfer/loan back with lots of cash is good stuff. But is a symptom of something bad (unless and perhaps even if splashed in the next week or so on good players) and we’ll have to wait and see what it’s for.

 

Yeah. Not complaining, but concerning. You'd hope it would be investigated.

This is either

A) A lovely gift from Papa Pozzo
B) Udinese hiding profits from Udogie deal
C) Allowing us to pay salaries next month

 

Yes but we’re getting most likely a larger amount for Pedro whose departure was not anticipated!

 

Some of the deals we were (hopefully still are) working on were definitely in mind of both leaving. Intrigued myself to see what we do now!

 

B is interesting. Udinese may want to avoid tax by paying cash out this year, having made bank with Molina and Udogie. So this may have as much to do with them as us, although that wasn’t French/Duxbury’s explanation.

 

The only downside of this for me is that we are down to 1 loan spot left in match day squads and still need quite a few in.

 

If this is really the case, does that mean that every time in recent seasons that we've bought a player from Udinese for an inflated fee, it's proof that Udinese must have been in a troubling financial condition while we were in decent financial health?! Or proof that Pozzos had been "asset stripping" Udinese?!

Ha.

 

I think we’ve only done that for Pussetto and believe the other fees were broadly correct (or deflated in some cases). My issue is that this transaction happens amid a context of considerable other funds being raised so we have to wonder why. I don’t think it constitutes asset stripping personally.

 

Claiming we needed to do this because Sarr's staying makes no sense because Pedro's sale wasn't planned until recently and makes up the shortfall.

Also have to wonder what impact this kind of thing has on the morale of the player - we've heard so many stories this summer of players being treated like assets rather than humans, and now Kamara is being dragged into the middle of something I suspect he knows very little about.

 

Now official



Watford Football Club
@WatfordFC

Hassane Kamara will remain at Watford FC for the 2022/23 season, having joined Udinese for a significant undisclosed fee and completed an immediate loan back to the Hornets.

Official: Kamara Completes Sale & Loan-Back Deal - Watford FC

Reading between the lines we are not as financially secure as SD made out in the summer. “This further protects the club at a time when balancing financial wellbeing and retaining a squad to compete at the top end of the Championship are our top priorities."

However, as I suspected might be the case, it looks like we might buy him back if we're promoted.
“Taking Rob’s guidance, we’ll review our options at the end of this season once divisional status is confirmed.”

 

I didn't think our dealings could get more bizarre but I've severely underestimated our owners in that regard.

Still, never boring, is it?

 

You say that, but there are posters on here who still try and claim that Penaranda and Success were amongst the club's biggest waste of money signings, if not the biggest. But really the fees for any Pozzo-to-Pozzo signing should be taken with massive pinch of salt. They should be excluded entirely from the conversation.

That award still clearly goes to Gray, the £18mil which we paid we'd never have any chance of getting back in some shape or form.

 

I have never said that and believe the fees were appropriate given their performances and trajectories at the time of purchase.

 

First half decent left back under the Pozzos and we're just gonna 'replace him.' I swear sometimes people have quite an unfoundedly optimistic view of our recruitment capabilities. .

 

No, but Udinese weren't up for sale like Watford are.

 

I wonder if the official club tweet today will start a new trend of using an adjective each time with ‘undisclosed fee’

Usually they just say ‘undisclosed’

Today, however, it’s a significant undisclosed fee

Following this apparent new trend, can we now look forward to future dealings being described as a pitiful undisclosed fee, or miserly, or ridiculous? Such as we fear might have the been the case with Zinck and a few others

 

Or, if you focus on the second part of his sentence "retaining a squad to compete at the top end of the Championship" we are doing this so we can hold on to Sarr and potentially give him a new contract, which could only be a good thing.

 

So we've effectively borrowed £16m off Udinese for a season if we go up?

Righty-ho.

 

I don’t think anybody is complaining about being tossed north of £16M!

I’d say people are concerned that this deal absolutely stinks.

SD has downplayed our financial situation in previous comments and if we go up and then “sign Kamara permanently”, it’ll basically appear as a vehicle for Udinese giving us a a load of money for nothing.

Surely you can see the grey areas here?

 

Crikey!

I used to get a comic for my pocket money.

Gino gets £16m from Papa AND a footballer.

Where did I go wrong?

 

That's not how accounting for purchase and sales of assets works.

You bank the profit of the sale in the period it's made in. The cost of a purchase is spread over the life of the contract.
If anything, we'll be posting an epic profit on HK; bought for what, £2mn 7 months ago and sold for £16mn.

edit: My gut feeling is the club had budgeted for money to come in for Sarr and Dennis by now, and it's not happened. It helps that Udinese have a gap to fill next season at LB, so it sorts everyone out.

 

I hope you're right and that this is the beginning of the end

 

If we get promoted and Burnley don't, then we should be all over Ian Maatsen (I know they have him on loan from Chelsea).

 

Ake and Holebas weren't too bad! With a year to target a left back, most likely for the Championship, I think we'd be fine.

 

What is the number of loans? Is it 4?

 

We've done this for Udinese a lot, I see it all as one pot with these deals being used to whoever if benefits most at the time. We'd had a massive U-Turn on over £25M of revenue come out of nowhere over the weekend, something had to give - I'd rather it this than a crap deal selling to Palace.

 

I agree if we have such cash flow problems we can’t meet out transfer instalments then it is a “good” thing that Udinese are stopping us defaulting. However the fact that they had to step in and kindly bung us £15m may be indicative of an underlying poor state of affairs. But in a vacuum yet it’s good to get a £15m cash injection of course!

 

5 in a match day squad, if Rob Didn't like the rule of 11 he certainly won't want to be also worrying about the rule of 5!

 

10 years and 1 on loan that we failed to secure perm and one kidnapped nut case.

 

So, we've Kamara, Davies, Choudhury, and Hause who you'd assume are all starters? Imagine one of Davies or Choudhury we will take the option on but yeah certainly leaves us with a risk . .

 

It just means at a time when we need to be cutting costs and raising funds to cover loan obligations we have an extra £16m to strengthen the squad - maybe Archer loan and others to come in this week ? Surprised they would need to do this with the Pedro sale looking likley but maybe they couldn't wait or weren't sure it would happen ?

 

Also, isn't Mogi Bayat Kamaras agent? Nice little earner for him potentially?

 

What would you have done with the footballer your dad had given you?

 

Need to be slightly careful about transfer pricing across boundaries. You can 't just move profits around to minimise tax, in theory all cross border transactions need to be at arms length pricing. I don't think we will have received too many requests to take Kamara off our hands for £16m having bought him less than a year ago for £2m(?) from the same entity. Bound to look like tax avoidance.