For The Kieran Maguire Wannabes....

Yeh doesn’t add up, but it could be due to timing of cash settlements ie when certain amounts were due at certain times .

 

A nice little earner for Mogi

 

Even assuming they paid for Kamara all up front (which I think was quoted by Wendover ) then it still doesn't add up that we owe them money given player moves the last 4 years.

 

While I don’t disagree that trading has not been great at Watford, there are plenty more examples of players that have gone through Udinese for a sizeable profit, Udogie, Beto, De Paul for example. I think the ‘Pozzo network’ has benefitted them more than us but Udinese have done well from trading over the years.


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You’re confusing Giampaolo Pozzo with Gino Pozzo. Both at the opposite ends of the skills spectrum.

Father Pozzo is the brains of the empire and thus us why Udinese thrived for so long. Once he stepped back and let the kids run the show, it’s all gone t1ts up.

 

I used these as an example as you put Sanchez forward, unless you meant Carlos..?


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Alexis

 

It’s all one wallet.

 

They never quite matched his achievements at match fixing and dodgy betting scandals either

 

Yet.

 

It looks like it is player related but I guess it may not be if it is in the common control section but looks odd. I have a terrible memory but did we take anybody from Udinese last season? If we did I can't think who it would be that is approaching £4.5m.

Not only that the balance to them has increased £6m+ YoY, assume it is not a loan or it would be in loans? We could contribute to scouting networks, overseas academies or such like but an additional £6m seems a lot and that is on top of whatever payments were actually made during the year, assuming there were any.

Not that often I agree with you @Jumbolina but it definitely whiffs of something unpleasant at first look!

 

This is hurting my brain, but could it all not be some sort of accounting ruse to make sure the £16m for Kamara is actually paid back to Udinese at some point?

 

True , difficult to explain that

 

Looking again at that extract we charged Udinese £27.5m last year and £34m in 2022 -looking at 2021 the accounts state £26m was charged-so thats £87m in the last 3 years from player sales so thats money owing to the club yet somehow the club owes (net) £19m to Udinese.

I cannot fathom which players we have sold for £87m in those 3 seasons and reconcile how we end up owing Udinese £19m. Unless this £19m is unrelated to transfers mentioned in the previous sentences but as the heading is transactions with related parties it actually relates to another outgoing.

Now a cost in the P&L which @Jumbolina and I have raised in the past are the operational expenses which have been much higher than comparable clubs-maybe the cost of these-£24.6m in 2023 from £44m in 2022 (and £28m in 2021) include Udinese costs which we haven't paid and so owe them £19m now?

 

Gino will funnel out the money to the safe haven of Udinese. That’s what the £19m is for. Probably the loan fee for Martins.

 

The Kieran Maguire tweets are a depressing read about the absolute shambles football in this country has become. Self sustainability should be the top priority, instead people are happy to set clubs up to lose £XXXXX per week in the pursuit of promotion, where it will cost them £XXXXX they haven't got just to stay there.

Football is broken, on the pitch and off it.

 

I'm not sure how much of this is allowed, FIFA are getting stricter on multi club collaborations. When I first started in my last job (the multi club group) my salary was paid by one of the clubs in the group, FIFA later told them this wasn't allowed and that my salary had to be split between the clubs in the group instead. So I'm not sure paying Udinese directly for some of that stuff would be allowed (might be wrong though!)

 

And depressingly so many fans and pundits don’t agree with FFP and think clubs should just be able to spend what they want, completely removing the sport element and just making it about who has the richest owner.l and to hell with everyone else.

I fully get the argument that so many clubs have been able to do that in the past, but that is never a reason not to draw a line somewhere and stop it happening going forward.

 

I think the problem with FFP is that it's largely meaningless. The playing field is already hugely unlevel. Man City, PSG, Newcastle etc. can fiddle things to a large enough extend that realistically, 99.9% of clubs cannot touch them anyway. That sometimes they get a bit greedy and push even the generous envelopes they've been given is kind of beside the point. Until we see one of these mega clubs (whose brands are essential to the financial success of global football TV contracts) get absolutely hammered, then I guess nobody really sees FFP as anything other than a means to punish the odd, aspiring mid-tier club for overreaching themselves.

 

Makes sense. But just gets back to how on earth do we owe them £19m based off the last few years of transfer activity. I don’t see how it is possible. Did Perica and Sierralta cost £20m each??

 

I do fully appreciate this bit, but, looking at the PL in isolation, the PL is essentially the 20 clubs in it. So, although the actual people who run the PL (Richard Masters etc.) probably want to avoid punishing clubs at all costs, my understanding is it’s the pressure from all the other clubs in the league that has brought about the 115+ charges against City. It’s probably a hugely naive viewpoint, but if the rules are there and there are enough clubs in the league that aren’t owned by countries, then in theory they should be enforced.

Unfortunately clubs like City have more money than god, so however much the inclination is there, they’ve got enough money to make it all go away anyway.

As an aside, Everton cooperated with the PL in relation to their FFP breaches, City are obviously going to stonewall them the whole way, so it’s going to take a lot longer to sort out.

 

Wasn't sure, so i've gone through every Watford and Udinese transaction, looking at the contract lengths of each player to work out which transfers would still be getting amortized. Perica was only a 2 year deal, so we've actually paid that off, I believe these are the only players each club are still paying off.



The fees we know about, totals €62.8m. However Udinese have bought €49.3m of players compared to Watford buying €13.5m of players from Udinese in comparison. Of course there's the 3 unknown fees - Okoye + Quina to Udinese and WTE to Watford. But that's quite the shortfall still so I'm quite confused in how we still owe Udinese money.

 

I can't remember for definite but pretty sure we didn't pay anything for Sierralta and Troost, there was a note somewhere down the accounts for related party transactions and it suggested that we had paid nothing for player registrations the year that they arrived.

 

Interesting, just realised Sierralta was signed on a 3 year deal anyway so would've been fully paid off if there was a fee anyway

 

The problem is, the Premier League is dependent on City, Liverpool, Man Utd etc. to make any money. If you're a mid table side, suckling at the teat, no matter the unfair advantages of the 'big 6' you know in your heart that no middle eastern broadcasters will be paying billions to watch Brighton vs Burnley, so it feels like it's in the interests of all 20 clubs to let the big names take the piss.

If Premier League teams want 150m a year then they have to look the other way when top 6 teams break the rules.

 

We're also in a huge minority wanting the league to be competitive. The Guardian did an article on this a few years ago and the modern football fan (especially the ones overseas) wants to see 7-0 wins by the big teams, like they're footballing Harlem Globetrotters. Quite often their support is now tied to individual stars rather than teams too.

I don't understand the mentality at all - unless I have a particular dislike of them, I always want underdogs to win. The whole point of sport is that it's unpredictable and competitive. But it seems that a lot of people these days prefer glorified exhibitions.

 

How much did the partnership with Oshida FC cost

The contract/agreement was supposed to end this coming September but reading bits & bobs around the place it sounds as if it has been discontinued already due to us being relegated and covid stopping a lot of the physical parts of the partnership

I doubt it was much in the grand scheme of things but if there are a lot of schemes on the go at once, all those small outgoings begin to add up

 

Surely they would have been paying us for the link up? Agree it probably wasn't a lot but can't see why we'd enter into that agreement if not bringing in a bit more money and they'd want the additional exposure/kudos of being linked to a Premier League team (even if one of the most tinpot).

 

It would have been driven by us to try and break into the Indian market. We had a weird obsession with bringing in a 'global audience' for a period in the PL.

 

I think for those of us over the age of 35, this is back to that age old comparison of club fans and 'followers.'

If you support a team because you had no choice. You were born into it or brought up in the area etc. There's nothing that can change that allegiance and so you are invested in highs and lows.

Nowadays the majority of football fans, even in this country, probably don't attend many games, don't live near the club they support and often have some tenuous tale to tell as to why they chose Liverpool or supporter Man City randomly when they were in the 3rd tier.

These people are never going to want football to be fair.

 

Is it weird? Surely just a standard commercial growth strategy? (Notwithstanding the club's pretty much anonymous outside of SW Herts and should probably concentrate on the rest of the local area first).

 

I read somewhere last night we were going to help them with their transfer policy/strategy
Have they gone bust yet??? (They haven't, I checked!)

A lot of the initial blurb was us helping them set up with coaching, academy ideas, visits to the UK with the chance to train at WFC while also playing against other teams. Very much an eye to the future for Indian players/players from the region Odisha are based in, to have opportunities to play in more established leagues

Where it looks like we were going to benefit was on the marketing and digital side

It just struck me as something that money will have been spent on, not millions but monies all the same, which quickly disappeared from view. It wasn't necessarily down to being incompetent, covid sounds like it played a huge part, but as I mentioned before, these schemes and collaborations cost money (there was research posted on here a while back regarding WFC being involved in academies in several parts of the world) and while each individual venture isn't bank breaking at the time, maybe getting out of agreements and contracts now or the recent past is adding to the financial pressure

 

The Dux working hard for his annual milly

 

Even growing up in Surrey in the 80s and 90s it was amazing the amount of kids at my school who had dads who were apparently all from North London, if they supported Spurs, the most successful London team at the time.