I mean Fati has achieved more at 17 already than either Success or Penaranda have in their whole careers to date? I’m not sure the point you’re making - that the club should be praised for unearthing gems but we should ignore the mistakes in some signings or how careers have been mismanaged?
I think you are correct. I also think it is stupid, and one of the mistakes the Pozzos have shown they make time and time again.
No i'm not saying we should ignore careers being mismanaged - this is the point we should be highlighting. What i'm saying is looking back with hindsight is a bit pointless, and I don't agree that signing two players, who at the time were viewed widely as highly promising, is a mistake. £20m for these 2 with the promises they showed at the time wasn't a waste or bad business. None of us thought it either. The fact we should be looking at and questioning is why they haven't kicked on. They both have talent, and that seems to be wasted, but I don't think the signings themselves were wrong, but questions do need to be asked on why they haven't improved.
Because the money has not been really been paid. The Pozzos could transfer the assets back in as simply in future as they have transferred them out. Just look at the moving of Pussetto back and forth, in reality it would have cost the club nothing. Had the Pozzos felt it been more sensible to have another £7mil back on our balance sheet again rather than Udinese's then they would have just sold him back to Udinese. However, clearly it made more sense to be where the funds are at the moment so instead it was a loan.
I partially agree. But I also think they haven’t been properly scouted as they clearly have character traits that have made them incompatible with us. In that sense, it’s fair to criticise the money that was spent on two players not suitable for us.
You have provided more evidence of things that benefit the group, and not Watford FC. The money has been paid - you are just sticking your head in the sand. We funnelled funds to the other Pozzo clubs for three **** players, one of whom has gone back to play for them, and have no hope of getting that money back any time soon. That may well have done wonders to balance Granda and Udinese's books but it did a fat lot of good for us.
Honestly moog, I thought you'd be smarter than this. If the Pozzos felt Watford needed the extra cash on their balance sheet then they would move it there. If they felt Udinese needed the extra cash they'd move it there instead. In exactly the same manner, they decide whether a player should rather be at Udinese or at Watford. A player that has been transferred to Udinese does not mean that it won't be very simple for the Pozzos to move the player to us in future when sensible, a la Troost-Ekong, Pussetto, Deulofeu, Abdi, etc. etc. In exactly the same way, £20mil that has been moved from our balance sheet to Udinese's could just as easily be moved back if needed. Just because it was moved at one point, does not mean that it's not funds which we couldn't still spend in future. Transferring funds in such a way could even hypothetically save us £millions in tax which would then be freed up to spend in future years. Some of the funds could have even been moved back already in ways we haven't registered. The Pozzos will determine the size of Watford's budget based on what the club can afford and what they can afford to spend as owners. You only need to look at sugar daddy-clubs from Chelsea to Everton to know that the club's balance sheet is not the be all and end all when it comes to how much owners will determine the size of the club's budget to be. It also doesn't really necessarily even make much of a difference whether the funds were moved to Udinese or to another investment. Say if you're Roman Abramovich and you think it makes sense to put £50mil in to Chelsea in each of the next 3 years, and £50mil in to other investments in each of the next 3 years. However, your other investments lose a lot of money in the 1st and 2nd years and you need to then pay an additional £50mil to cover them - that could well be £50mil less than you could have put in to Chelsea and had originally planned to. And the club will not directly know such a thing occurred. Or, alternatively, your alternative investments make £50mil more in profit by the 2nd year than you anticipated - suddenly, that's an additional £50mil you have in profit which you can potentially put in Chelsea on top of what you already planned. The idea that what goes on in the Pozzos' wider business investments does not all affect or trickle down in to what Watford can spend as a club, is a nonsense. In the grander scheme of things, what Watford can and can't spend will be significantly affected by the extent to which the Pozzos are able to manage their total investments as efficiently as possible.
See my post above - the money has not really been paid. Heck, it might as well be said that the money is simply a loan which could be moved back when needed. Maybe the money has already been transferred back through various means which we haven't even considered, for instance maybe Troost-Ekong was transferred for £0, even though on the open market he's an asset who would be considered to cost at least £5mil. In the same way that Deulofeu has been moved to Udinese on loan - i.e. he is currently there but could come back to us at any time - the same could be said for the Pozzos' funds. It is still under their control. They will manage it however is the most effective and efficient overall. I'm not sticking my head in the sand, you're the one who is blinkered.
Was there a section in the annual accounts where it shows that the widely reported fee’s for Success and Penaranda were indeed false and much cheaper than claimed? Or in any subsequent accounts where money is just randomly passed between the 2 clubs? I’m not saying what you’re claiming isn’t true. But what is it factually based on?
I don't debate that it is possible for them to shift us assets in return that are of value, but the reality is that it is not happening. The Group have historically had a lot of squad players not good enough for Udinese, and we used them to get promoted. At that time, being in the Group helped us - I don't debate that. However since promotion we have been funnelling our TV money to the group through transfers such as Penaranda, Success, Sven Kums, and have now been relegated after inadequate investment in our own squad. How has being a member of the Group honestly helped us over the last 4 years? Karnezis? Wague?
We have large tax losses brought forward as at 2019 and this will be significantly bigger now. There is no tax angle as suggested to Udinese funnelling money away from us via Pussetto.
Obviously the money moved from one balance sheet to another, but the point is that the money is still ultimately in the Pozzos' control and they could move it back somehow if they felt it necessary and would be efficient and effective to do so: e.g. they could have decided to buy Pereyra for Udinese from Watford for, say, £15mil, had they wanted to move funds back from their balance sheet to ours. Maybe it might not have been efficient for tax/foreign exchange/timing/availability issues etc. etc. As it is, we don't even know what the fee for Pereyra was at this moment in time. We also don't know what Watford paid for Troost-Ekong, who is an asset probably worth about £5mil and is now on our books. They might have even moved the money back in ways we can't even really perceive - e.g. maybe one year they decided to "borrow" £30mil from the club, instead of a £50mil sum they might have needed had they not already moved funds from the club to Italy.
Italy generally has lower taxes than the UK, even on that simple basis it makes more sense to have more profits/earnings registered at the Italian club (with the tax savings then able to be distributed back to us in future). Also, think of how many players they have sent from Udinese to us over the years, whether it's for fees or for free or on loan. The funds have not just vanished, they will be under consideration as part of what the Pozzos broadly have available to allocate.
Of course that’s all entirely feasible. But is there anything in the accounts that proves it? Again, I don’t mean this to cause arguments etc But it is being used as a defence of the model/finances and has been for a while now. I just wondered if anyone had actually seen any irrefutable evidence of it. Or whether it’s just a well-placed hunch.
Ok, in our hour of need, right now, where is the £20m? We get Ekong, because they have signed an upgrade on him along with Sierlta and Perica. Why aren't we getting big 8 figure sums for Pereyra and Deulofeu so that we can go and buy 3 or 4 players for the Championship? The Pozzos COULD move money our way but they don't. We were the cash cow for their network for 5 years but they ****ed it up and now that we don't have the Premier League magic money tree anymore, it's us who are bearing the consequences, not Udinese. Them sending us a load of reserves in 2013 which collectively cost them about 5m is not the same as us sending them 10s of millions for duff players just go allow them to suckle at our teat.
We have large tax losses brought forward. Corporation tax rates are irrelevant in our scenario. Additionally the Italian corporation tax rate is 5% higher than the UK. Apart from that good point.
I have never studied Italian tax law, so I have no idea about what exemptions may / may not apply, but purely looking at the base rates Italian corporation tax is higher than UK corporation tax. You may be thinking of Italian income tax, which does have significant tax breaks for foreign players. I dont dispute that. However, generally lots of the players that have come our way have been fairly inexpensive squad filler that would likely have been shipped out on loan. We have sent the likes of Okaka, Zeeg, Sema, Wilmot their way as well. The Pena / Success transfers would be like if Udinese had offered us £20m for Quina and Tom Dele Bashiru - something I suspect is not likely to happen.
I've not poured over the accounts in detail, but as with some of the examples I've given there, there are methods by which it could happen which would not even necessarily directly register on our balance sheet. Going back to my house/cars/boats analogy, just because the Pozzos don't have one of their cars parked in our garage at the moment, doesn't mean it isn't locked away securely at another parking spot around the corner. The balance sheet of our club isn't the be-all and end-all of what the ultimate financial health of our club would be. Without being able to know the value of movings of all our owners investments you can not get a complete picture of that. However, one can surely assume that the Pozzos will be intending to move their assets around with the aim of increasing their overall value, rather than destroying value. The Pozzos have a pretty free remit in determining what the fees should be for moving their players between the two clubs, one can surely assume that in determining the fees going each way they would happen upon figures which would make the most financial sense from an overall perspective.
Haven’t checked if that is true but assuming it is how is that relevant to artificially moving money between one corporate and another?
Maybe it was spent in splashing out for Sarr, rather than the Pozzos banking the money themselves? Without knowing the total balance sheet of all the Pozzos' investment, a lot of your assumptions are impossible and meaningless. Maybe without the money from the PL it would not make financial sense to do so? We know the Pozzos aren't as loaded as the owners of some other clubs, they can't just keep throwing large sums at the clubs to try and solve situations. If they think a solution to what the club needs can be found on loan rather than for an £8mil outlay then likely they'll go for the less espensive option. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but clearly they'll be keeping an eye on what both themselves and the club can afford.
It’s useless trying to apply that logic unfortunately. The same people who take issue with it, also take issue with Watford making profit on players who never played for us. It’s an argument you’ll never win because everything annoys them.
Oh, here's another example beyond what I've already posted - Estupinan was transferred from Udinese to Watford for a fee we don't know about, yet is likely to be nominal, however the €16mil sale will now be registered on Watford's balance sheet despite him never having even played for either Udinese or Watford. Of all the things to get annoyed about, the Pozzos' perennial paper shuffling is a rather odd one.
Or, in the absence of black and white evidence to support the above, people just apply themselves to a different way of thinking perhaps? But sure, carry on with the subtle digs because people don’t buy it entirely like yourself.
I don't care about the finances of the Pozzo group of clubs, but would we have been I get what you mean, and I suspect the Success valuation was in part to get him a work permit, but on the other hand, it's still money that comes out of our accounts (just like however much money Giampaolo Pozzo gave us for Pereyra counts too, albeit it would also mean they can't then invest that money themselves in the team using their own money)
Indeed, same with Penaranda, another point overlooked by barely1egal in his desire to find something to get irate about.
I think you people can keep looking at the network and the numbers and the peripheral players and develop all your theories about the wider strategy and wisdom. I'll look at my club, Watford and see the results in the playing squad and our league performance. I know where my priorities lie. I can't say they are the same as Gino's.
But his point is that it's no use to us now, the money has left our accounts and we're left with a **** player. I would love to know the 'fees' involved in moving all these players around the Pozzo network, I'd like to think we got WTE, Perica and Sierralta essentially for free while receiving 8 figures for Pereyra (as well as them paying all of Deulofeu and Pussetto's wages), but I haven't a clue
Sure, you can think that, but it is not directly related to the specific senseless idea that Penaranda and Success lost the club huge amounts of money (which we probably would or could still get back when deemed fit, or may have already gotten back from our owners somehow either directly or indirectly).
Sure, but the point is it's possible. Plus, if the Pozzos calculated that it would have been most prudent to have structured the deals that way then they would have been able to do so and would have done it.
Money out to Udinese = Wrong, I care about Watford not Udinese, I want the money on our balance sheet. Money in to Watford for players that never played for us = Wrong, I want the players to play for Watford, I don’t want the money.
I think there's definitely an element of that in all these deals to Udinese of late, I mean, I'm sure they're all happy enough to be there and not here for now, but once we realised that there were no takers for them, it was all done in a haphazard way. Deulofeu and Pussetto look like the only out and out left and right wingers respectively at the club, but how do they fit Pereyra, De Paul and Forestieri into a team?
Aside from the fact that we actually didn't pay enough for Penaranda for him to classify for a work permit so he had to spend years out on loan qualifying for a Spanish passport via 2 years of residency, but don't let that get in the way of your agenda that the Pozzos never get anything wrong and that things that prima facie look like funnelling funds out of watford are actually all in the greater good of the group.
Forestiri as good for us back in the day, but Sheffield Wednesday fans laughed at us when we were linked with him in the championship. Can't imagine him being anything other than cheap squad filler.
