[RELEASED] Filip Stuparevic

My understanding with that is we were basically conned by a dodgy agent, I don’t think we as a club actually knowingly did anything wrong, other than perhaps being naive in allowing it to happen. We were definitely under the understanding we’d signed him legitimately until it became clearer and clearer we actually hadn’t and the agent had forged various documents, hence eventually not turning up for the hearing.

 

Agreed. Do some fans really expect every cheap punt like this to make money and deliver a £25m premier league striker? It’s just like an incubator investment fund - just need one or two from each crop to be sold for £5m or so and that covers the loss on the other 95%. The fact that some fans were expecting this guy to grow and develop to become our first team striker is hilarious.

 

Watford? Gino Pozzo? Dodgy agents?

None of that sounds right.

 

If we are buying players like Stuparevic for £3m and Oulare for £6m then we need to sell the odd player for £20/£30m to offset. And we have in the past (Lukebakio/Richarlison/Doucs). If you tot everything up whether we are up or down comes down to if you include Peneranda/Success I imagine. Both players bad for our finances and probably of zero value but as a Pozzo group picked up for very little.

 

It’s really not is it? Toney was £5m, was it ridiculous for Brentford fans to expect him to score 30 goals a season?

£3m is quite a lot for an unknown kid from Serbia, I don’t think anyone just assumed he’d be our starting striker one day, but it’s not unreasonable to expect a £3m outlay to grow beyond £3m, rather than his contract being written off.

What you’re saying is massively contradictory, because you’re saying spending £3m on a player is never going to pay off, so why are we doing it?

 

No but you are comparing pre covid market with post covid market. Of course I'd prefer us to have spent £5m on Toney than £3m on Stup, it was always likely he would succeed at champ level though the level of his success couldn't be predicted.

Any investment can grow or shrink. I'm sure they hoped his value would grow but more will shrink than grow. Having to pay off his contract is clearly the worst possible outcome.

That's not what I'm saying at all and you know it. I'm saying out of many small investments, only one or two will become valuable assets and most will lose money, compensated by the relatively few high value successes.

 

I genuinely wouldn’t expect most to lose money (in that price bracket) I’d expect the majority to not really gain value, not go backwards to the point they’re actually worthless. That takes quite some doing.

The point about Toney is that it’s a pretty regular occurrence for relatively small sums invested in young players from lesser leagues to grow into significant assets, Covid is irrelevant to that fact. You’re making out that it can’t be done and £3m invested could only hope to grow to about £5m max.

 

Peneranda, Gray and Success have gone from £41m to zero . My favourite was The Jurado. Bought for £7.75m, played most games and then sold a year later for £1m!

 

The Pozzos only bought Penaranda and Success for about €1mil combined.

 

Seems that way. It's almost like no other club in the country takes punts on players and they turn out to be crap.

I saw Lukebakio mentioned in a list on a previous post. Didn't we buy him for £2m then flog him for £15m a year later after a few sub appearances?

There will currently be some lad playing non league that every club has rejected who will eventually play in the Champions League. Likewise there will be some 16 year old all the big clubs are **** in hand for who ends up stacking shelves.

Scouting is no doubt much harder than people on here seem to make out

 

Genuine question - does it show that on our balance sheet or Granada’s?

Because that may be what they cost Granada surely - but they cost us more? If we gave that money to Granada for them and then the Pozzo’s sold off the Spanish club, surely it’s irrelevant they cost them €1m to begin with. It’s what they cost Watford that matters surely? Were they on our balance sheet for €1m?

 

Yes (as mentioned above). However, our clubs finances are hammered due to the structuring between group clubs.

 

Both Success and Penaranda were bought by Udinese.

 

No one knows this (except the Pozzos).

 

No. Our balance sheet gets trashed. Granada get a big uplift (pre sale).

 

It’s simply a matter of accounting fact. We bought two players for £25 million who are now valueless. (And paid them 5 years wages on top).

Whether other deals balance this out is open to review but for these 2 players the facts are indisputable.

 

The Pozzos and "we" are near enough interchangeable.

The wages and the initial fees paid by the Pozzos are the only things worth counting.

 

Okay. Same question but change Granada for Udinese and disregard the part about selling Granada.

I still think it’s important for context whether the transfer fees we paid are on our balance sheet.

 

Disagree. Watford fc has mountains of external debt. The intergroup fees we pay get amortised through our accounts and crystallises windfall gains in other group entities. If the Pozzo family sell us that stays with us. Obviously that impacts valuation when they sell us but I don’t care about that. I care about the financial stability of my own football club, not the Pozzo group.

 

They are and are amortised to our P&L each year.

 

This isn’t true as the many sets of accounts published whilst both clubs have been under the same ownership show. As @Jumbolina says, other deals occurring might redress the balance in places (if they turn out to be successful). But the fact remains large fees flowed to Udinese for those players. They didn’t cost Watford FC €1m.

And taking out a loan this summer because they couldn’t pay us for players is a pretty big indication that money doesn’t just flow between the two clubs via the owners.

 

Pussetto and Oulare were favours to Udinese and Mogi Bayat, Lukebakio the same to an extent albeit he actually had ability and at least earned us some money. Were the French players also Bayat clients? On paper they shouldn't have been so bad (or so non-existent!), they had decent careers before joining us and Gueye and Foulquier have done well since leaving. Navarro I'm convinced was just backup, Dalby to bulk up the U23s, Berghuis probably was bought with a view to being in the first team but didn't fit the system we played under QSF (not unlike Sarr 4 years later!), then Sinclair and Penaranda were young player with at least a degree of talent (Penaranda more so than Sinclair), who fell by the wayside by a combination of dumb decisions from both them and the club

 

Gueye couldn’t leave if he never arrived!

 

And then when they sold Granada they basically asset-stripped them and ended up getting relegated miserably. I don't really agree with people saying the Pozzos are taking advantage of us to help their other interests, I just think it's as simply as them spreading themselves too thinly

 

Hearing? What hearing?

 

It would be interesting to see the complete financial picture of that lot. How much paid for, wages, loan fees and sales fees. While as fans we hope to see every player we buy make an impact in the first team, that never remotely happens. You hope a decent percentage of them do, enough to move the team forward and you hope to make money (on average) on the lot of them. We'll never see those details of course, but it would be interesting.

 

According to that link their 12th highest ranked transfer off all time was free transfer .

 

What’s the emoji for someone putting a shotgun to their mouth combined with a sad face.
Whatever that is I’m posting it here .

 

Someone asked a question and I answered it. Not sure why you have a problem with that.

 

Man Utd made a transfer fee out of the deal though.

 

I don’t have a problem , I like your posts and actually agree with most of what you’re saying , although I would posit that it doesn’t take in the bigger picture and is perhaps a little myopic. But that’s fine , it’s juts my opinion .

The thing that bothers me and quite a few others is the forum of late has become swamped with a number of posters repeating themselves over and over again that it makes it a really difficult and arduous read .

 

If you scroll back to December 2017 I also said this.