Give Gino A Break?

Ilkley · Jan 16, 2024

Jossy said: ↑

Managed to translate it using a few tricks:

The darkest side of football was hidden behind the accounts of Granada C.F.: desire for “illicit” money, “opaque” corporate structures, a lack of “ethical culture”… That is the great conclusion that the Prosecutor's Office has reached. Anti-corruption in Operation Líbero, a judicial investigation that targets Gino Pozzo, owner of the English Watford and member of the clan that controls the Italian Udinese, and Enrique Pina Campuzano, alias Quique Pina, the businessman who presided over the Andalusian team of 2009 to 2016. According to the public ministry, who asks for 12 years in prison for them, both executed a “long-term criminal plan” to take control of the club and defraud millions from the Treasury through “complex” money movements linked to the signing of players through a business network.

After more than five years of investigations, the Prosecutor's Office has already put on the table its indictment in this summary, which is pending trial (the investigator issued an order to open an oral hearing a few days ago) and which has been promoted by the National Court. An investigation that led to Pina's preventive imprisonment in 2018. "The defendants launched a long-term criminal plan that, starting with the takeover of Granada C.F. in 2009 and through the execution of a complex strategy, would allow them to use the capital gains that the club obtained through the transfer of players football professionals were artificially transferred to Luxembourg and did not pay taxes in Spain, thus obtaining a notable economic profit to the detriment of the national Public Treasury,” summarizes the document signed by Anticorrupción, to which EL PAÍS has had access. To do this, adds the public ministry, the suspects “emptied the club's treasury” and “simulated” that they needed a source of financing through a Luxembourg company, Fifteen Securitisation, which allowed the Andalusian team “to undertake the signing of a group of professional players in exchange for 95% of the amount of their future transfers to other clubs.

In this way, while in the sporting field the meteoric rise of Granada was taking shape - which in just two years went from Second B to First Division, where it was consolidated -, in the offices an alleged machinery with international tentacles was being created (in Italy, Luxembourg or the United Arab Emirates) to “hide” data from the authorities and the benefits obtained from the purchase and sale of players. Anticorruption estimates that, at least, almost 9.5 million euros were not paid to the Treasury for the Corporate Taxes of 2013, 2014 and 2015.

In its letter, the Prosecutor's Office requests 12 years in prison for Pozzo, Pina and the other two accused: Raffaele de la Riva, administrator of the Luxembourg company used as an alleged front; and Jordi Trilles, collaborator of the Italian manager and former advisor of Granada. Anti-corruption also demands that million-dollar fines be imposed on all of them: 36.5 million euros on the son of the owner of Udinese, whom they point out as the ringleader; and 27.5 million to the other three, whom he defines as “cooperators.” For its part, the public ministry asks the National Court to order Granada as a legal entity to pay a fine of almost 27 million euros for three tax crimes. In addition, all of them are being asked to pay the almost 9.5 million (plus interest) defrauded in Corporate Tax installments.

Sources close to Enrique Pina insist that the accusations are unfounded and that, in the case of the Spanish businessman, he was only dedicated to sports management. In addition, they remember that the investigating judge archived the case, which was later reopened by the Criminal Chamber of the National Court. EL PAÍS has tried without success to obtain Pozzo's version through the English club that he owns.

This judicial process especially places Quique Pina against the ropes. As EL PAÍS reported, the National Court already sentenced him to nine months in prison at the end of 2022 for plotting a parallel plot, together with his parents and his sister, to avoid paying 3.2 million euros that they had to pay to the Treasury as former responsible for the C. F. Ciudad de Murcia, which the businessman also presided over. In that case (a derivative of this Operation Líbero that surrounds him with Pozzo), Pina decided to make an agreement with the Prosecutor's Office to ensure a minimum sentence - which would prevent him from going to jail -, thus admitting the "property emptying maneuvers" that He tried to hide his fortune while leading a full life - which included the enjoyment of high-end vehicles (Porsche, Aston Martin...) or a 500,000 euro yacht called El Duende.

The Anticorrupción story places the origin of the plot in 2009, when Granada was sunk in the Second Division B of Spanish football and was going through significant “economic difficulties that jeopardized its continuity.” Those responsible for the club at the time sought, through a bankruptcy process, to create an “adequate scenario” to resolve the problems and thus be able to launch a new sports project that was “economically viable.” A breeding ground that led to the landing of Gino Pozzo and his collaborators through a “set of opaque structures.”

According to the accusation, the suspects devised a plan to first gain “control of the bankruptcy process”—acquiring “a significant percentage of the credits” carried by the club—which would later allow them to rise to the top of the Andalusian team. To do this, they allegedly used a company linked to Pozzo, Daxian 2009 S.L., in which Pina was placed as administrator, who would later be named president of Granada and given “full powers” in sports matters. The name of Pina, a former footballer who never reached the elite, was already resonating at that time in the offices due to his career at the head of Ciudad de Murcia. The Prosecutor's Office emphasizes that all these maneuvers, which were followed to the "millimeter", are detailed in an email intercepted from De la Riva and sent to Pozzo, among others.

The alleged “criminal” group, already infiltrated, asked to execute the bankruptcy proceedings and immediately began to deploy the first “accounting tricks.” For example, it acquired the rights to 12 players on the squad through a company based in the United Arab Emirates – for which a price of 8.6 million euros was agreed upon – according to the indictment, with “the with a view to the future conversion of the club into a Sports Public Limited Company” and with the objective of “artificially reducing the minimum share capital figure” that was going to be required.

Once this phase was over and with the club under control, the suspects supposedly activated the second part of the plan and began to “materialize the fraud strategy.” According to Anti-Corruption, they used a network of “instrumental” companies to “empty the club's treasury” and pretend that it needed an external financing channel to acquire the rights of players, which was covered by the Luxembourg company Fifteen Securitisation. However, the “most” of the funds provided by said company actually came from Granada itself, from which they had previously been extracted.

“Once this scenario was created, the fraudulent strategy was carried out through the planned execution of a set of signing and transfer operations of professional footballers,” continues the indictment from the Prosecutor's Office, which adds: “To this end, the accused They had to carefully control a multitude of variables that will affect a large group of players and a large number of instrumental entities: the contracts that have to be signed with the footballers, their amount, the dates, the movements of funds that will be used , the instrumental entities through which these funds are passed, with the necessary synchronization of payments and collections, and the accounting of the operations between Granada and Fifteen Securitisation. Some “complex movements of funds” that “actually lacked any sporting and economic logic”, but which allowed them not to pay taxes “in Spain on capital gains”.

The Prosecutor's Office places under suspicion transfers of players, at least, from 2013 to 2016, for which the Treasury was not taxed: among them, those of Guilherme Magdalena Siqueira (to Atlético de Madrid for nine million); Daniel Pudil (to Watford for 1.5 million); Allan Marques Loureiro (to Napoli for 14.1 million); Jeison Fabián Murillo (to Inter for eight million); Yacine Brahimi (to Porto for nine million, “although he declared for 6.5 million”); and Mikel Rico (to Athletic Club de Bilbao for 2.45 million). Likewise, the focus is on the relationship woven between Granada and Udinese, between whom an intense flow of money and footballers was also established.

I'm sure it's nothing to worry about. This kind of thing happens to all owners of all clubs across the world. Now click to subscribe and smash that like button.
Click to expand...

Thanks for posting a translation.
As you say, nothing to worry about. After all, it's only allegations.

HampshireHorn84 · Jan 16, 2024

They do take tax fraud pretty serious (ish) in Spain but imagine (like with Messi and a whole string of players) it will be financial penalties rather than jail time

fuzzy73 · Jan 16, 2024

Jossy said: ↑

Managed to translate it using a few tricks:

The darkest side of football was hidden behind the accounts of Granada C.F.: desire for “illicit” money, “opaque” corporate structures, a lack of “ethical culture”… That is the great conclusion that the Prosecutor's Office has reached. Anti-corruption in Operation Líbero, a judicial investigation that targets Gino Pozzo, owner of the English Watford and member of the clan that controls the Italian Udinese, and Enrique Pina Campuzano, alias Quique Pina, the businessman who presided over the Andalusian team of 2009 to 2016. According to the public ministry, who asks for 12 years in prison for them, both executed a “long-term criminal plan” to take control of the club and defraud millions from the Treasury through “complex” money movements linked to the signing of players through a business network.

After more than five years of investigations, the Prosecutor's Office has already put on the table its indictment in this summary, which is pending trial (the investigator issued an order to open an oral hearing a few days ago) and which has been promoted by the National Court. An investigation that led to Pina's preventive imprisonment in 2018. "The defendants launched a long-term criminal plan that, starting with the takeover of Granada C.F. in 2009 and through the execution of a complex strategy, would allow them to use the capital gains that the club obtained through the transfer of players football professionals were artificially transferred to Luxembourg and did not pay taxes in Spain, thus obtaining a notable economic profit to the detriment of the national Public Treasury,” summarizes the document signed by Anticorrupción, to which EL PAÍS has had access. To do this, adds the public ministry, the suspects “emptied the club's treasury” and “simulated” that they needed a source of financing through a Luxembourg company, Fifteen Securitisation, which allowed the Andalusian team “to undertake the signing of a group of professional players in exchange for 95% of the amount of their future transfers to other clubs.

In this way, while in the sporting field the meteoric rise of Granada was taking shape - which in just two years went from Second B to First Division, where it was consolidated -, in the offices an alleged machinery with international tentacles was being created (in Italy, Luxembourg or the United Arab Emirates) to “hide” data from the authorities and the benefits obtained from the purchase and sale of players. Anticorruption estimates that, at least, almost 9.5 million euros were not paid to the Treasury for the Corporate Taxes of 2013, 2014 and 2015.

In its letter, the Prosecutor's Office requests 12 years in prison for Pozzo, Pina and the other two accused: Raffaele de la Riva, administrator of the Luxembourg company used as an alleged front; and Jordi Trilles, collaborator of the Italian manager and former advisor of Granada. Anti-corruption also demands that million-dollar fines be imposed on all of them: 36.5 million euros on the son of the owner of Udinese, whom they point out as the ringleader; and 27.5 million to the other three, whom he defines as “cooperators.” For its part, the public ministry asks the National Court to order Granada as a legal entity to pay a fine of almost 27 million euros for three tax crimes. In addition, all of them are being asked to pay the almost 9.5 million (plus interest) defrauded in Corporate Tax installments.

Sources close to Enrique Pina insist that the accusations are unfounded and that, in the case of the Spanish businessman, he was only dedicated to sports management. In addition, they remember that the investigating judge archived the case, which was later reopened by the Criminal Chamber of the National Court. EL PAÍS has tried without success to obtain Pozzo's version through the English club that he owns.

This judicial process especially places Quique Pina against the ropes. As EL PAÍS reported, the National Court already sentenced him to nine months in prison at the end of 2022 for plotting a parallel plot, together with his parents and his sister, to avoid paying 3.2 million euros that they had to pay to the Treasury as former responsible for the C. F. Ciudad de Murcia, which the businessman also presided over. In that case (a derivative of this Operation Líbero that surrounds him with Pozzo), Pina decided to make an agreement with the Prosecutor's Office to ensure a minimum sentence - which would prevent him from going to jail -, thus admitting the "property emptying maneuvers" that He tried to hide his fortune while leading a full life - which included the enjoyment of high-end vehicles (Porsche, Aston Martin...) or a 500,000 euro yacht called El Duende.

The Anticorrupción story places the origin of the plot in 2009, when Granada was sunk in the Second Division B of Spanish football and was going through significant “economic difficulties that jeopardized its continuity.” Those responsible for the club at the time sought, through a bankruptcy process, to create an “adequate scenario” to resolve the problems and thus be able to launch a new sports project that was “economically viable.” A breeding ground that led to the landing of Gino Pozzo and his collaborators through a “set of opaque structures.”

According to the accusation, the suspects devised a plan to first gain “control of the bankruptcy process”—acquiring “a significant percentage of the credits” carried by the club—which would later allow them to rise to the top of the Andalusian team. To do this, they allegedly used a company linked to Pozzo, Daxian 2009 S.L., in which Pina was placed as administrator, who would later be named president of Granada and given “full powers” in sports matters. The name of Pina, a former footballer who never reached the elite, was already resonating at that time in the offices due to his career at the head of Ciudad de Murcia. The Prosecutor's Office emphasizes that all these maneuvers, which were followed to the "millimeter", are detailed in an email intercepted from De la Riva and sent to Pozzo, among others.

The alleged “criminal” group, already infiltrated, asked to execute the bankruptcy proceedings and immediately began to deploy the first “accounting tricks.” For example, it acquired the rights to 12 players on the squad through a company based in the United Arab Emirates – for which a price of 8.6 million euros was agreed upon – according to the indictment, with “the with a view to the future conversion of the club into a Sports Public Limited Company” and with the objective of “artificially reducing the minimum share capital figure” that was going to be required.

Once this phase was over and with the club under control, the suspects supposedly activated the second part of the plan and began to “materialize the fraud strategy.” According to Anti-Corruption, they used a network of “instrumental” companies to “empty the club's treasury” and pretend that it needed an external financing channel to acquire the rights of players, which was covered by the Luxembourg company Fifteen Securitisation. However, the “most” of the funds provided by said company actually came from Granada itself, from which they had previously been extracted.

“Once this scenario was created, the fraudulent strategy was carried out through the planned execution of a set of signing and transfer operations of professional footballers,” continues the indictment from the Prosecutor's Office, which adds: “To this end, the accused They had to carefully control a multitude of variables that will affect a large group of players and a large number of instrumental entities: the contracts that have to be signed with the footballers, their amount, the dates, the movements of funds that will be used , the instrumental entities through which these funds are passed, with the necessary synchronization of payments and collections, and the accounting of the operations between Granada and Fifteen Securitisation. Some “complex movements of funds” that “actually lacked any sporting and economic logic”, but which allowed them not to pay taxes “in Spain on capital gains”.

The Prosecutor's Office places under suspicion transfers of players, at least, from 2013 to 2016, for which the Treasury was not taxed: among them, those of Guilherme Magdalena Siqueira (to Atlético de Madrid for nine million); Daniel Pudil (to Watford for 1.5 million); Allan Marques Loureiro (to Napoli for 14.1 million); Jeison Fabián Murillo (to Inter for eight million); Yacine Brahimi (to Porto for nine million, “although he declared for 6.5 million”); and Mikel Rico (to Athletic Club de Bilbao for 2.45 million). Likewise, the focus is on the relationship woven between Granada and Udinese, between whom an intense flow of money and footballers was also established.

I'm sure it's nothing to worry about. This kind of thing happens to all owners of all clubs across the world. Now click to subscribe and smash that like button.
Click to expand...

Otter · Jan 16, 2024

fuzzy73 said: ↑

View attachment 23985
Click to expand...

Not a fan of werewolf on here then.

The undeniable truth · Jan 16, 2024

Jossy said: ↑

Managed to translate it using a few tricks:

The darkest side of football was hidden behind the accounts of Granada C.F.: desire for “illicit” money, “opaque” corporate structures, a lack of “ethical culture”… That is the great conclusion that the Prosecutor's Office has reached. Anti-corruption in Operation Líbero, a judicial investigation that targets Gino Pozzo, owner of the English Watford and member of the clan that controls the Italian Udinese, and Enrique Pina Campuzano, alias Quique Pina, the businessman who presided over the Andalusian team of 2009 to 2016. According to the public ministry, who asks for 12 years in prison for them, both executed a “long-term criminal plan” to take control of the club and defraud millions from the Treasury through “complex” money movements linked to the signing of players through a business network.

After more than five years of investigations, the Prosecutor's Office has already put on the table its indictment in this summary, which is pending trial (the investigator issued an order to open an oral hearing a few days ago) and which has been promoted by the National Court. An investigation that led to Pina's preventive imprisonment in 2018. "The defendants launched a long-term criminal plan that, starting with the takeover of Granada C.F. in 2009 and through the execution of a complex strategy, would allow them to use the capital gains that the club obtained through the transfer of players football professionals were artificially transferred to Luxembourg and did not pay taxes in Spain, thus obtaining a notable economic profit to the detriment of the national Public Treasury,” summarizes the document signed by Anticorrupción, to which EL PAÍS has had access. To do this, adds the public ministry, the suspects “emptied the club's treasury” and “simulated” that they needed a source of financing through a Luxembourg company, Fifteen Securitisation, which allowed the Andalusian team “to undertake the signing of a group of professional players in exchange for 95% of the amount of their future transfers to other clubs.

In this way, while in the sporting field the meteoric rise of Granada was taking shape - which in just two years went from Second B to First Division, where it was consolidated -, in the offices an alleged machinery with international tentacles was being created (in Italy, Luxembourg or the United Arab Emirates) to “hide” data from the authorities and the benefits obtained from the purchase and sale of players. Anticorruption estimates that, at least, almost 9.5 million euros were not paid to the Treasury for the Corporate Taxes of 2013, 2014 and 2015.

In its letter, the Prosecutor's Office requests 12 years in prison for Pozzo, Pina and the other two accused: Raffaele de la Riva, administrator of the Luxembourg company used as an alleged front; and Jordi Trilles, collaborator of the Italian manager and former advisor of Granada. Anti-corruption also demands that million-dollar fines be imposed on all of them: 36.5 million euros on the son of the owner of Udinese, whom they point out as the ringleader; and 27.5 million to the other three, whom he defines as “cooperators.” For its part, the public ministry asks the National Court to order Granada as a legal entity to pay a fine of almost 27 million euros for three tax crimes. In addition, all of them are being asked to pay the almost 9.5 million (plus interest) defrauded in Corporate Tax installments.

Sources close to Enrique Pina insist that the accusations are unfounded and that, in the case of the Spanish businessman, he was only dedicated to sports management. In addition, they remember that the investigating judge archived the case, which was later reopened by the Criminal Chamber of the National Court. EL PAÍS has tried without success to obtain Pozzo's version through the English club that he owns.

This judicial process especially places Quique Pina against the ropes. As EL PAÍS reported, the National Court already sentenced him to nine months in prison at the end of 2022 for plotting a parallel plot, together with his parents and his sister, to avoid paying 3.2 million euros that they had to pay to the Treasury as former responsible for the C. F. Ciudad de Murcia, which the businessman also presided over. In that case (a derivative of this Operation Líbero that surrounds him with Pozzo), Pina decided to make an agreement with the Prosecutor's Office to ensure a minimum sentence - which would prevent him from going to jail -, thus admitting the "property emptying maneuvers" that He tried to hide his fortune while leading a full life - which included the enjoyment of high-end vehicles (Porsche, Aston Martin...) or a 500,000 euro yacht called El Duende.

The Anticorrupción story places the origin of the plot in 2009, when Granada was sunk in the Second Division B of Spanish football and was going through significant “economic difficulties that jeopardized its continuity.” Those responsible for the club at the time sought, through a bankruptcy process, to create an “adequate scenario” to resolve the problems and thus be able to launch a new sports project that was “economically viable.” A breeding ground that led to the landing of Gino Pozzo and his collaborators through a “set of opaque structures.”

According to the accusation, the suspects devised a plan to first gain “control of the bankruptcy process”—acquiring “a significant percentage of the credits” carried by the club—which would later allow them to rise to the top of the Andalusian team. To do this, they allegedly used a company linked to Pozzo, Daxian 2009 S.L., in which Pina was placed as administrator, who would later be named president of Granada and given “full powers” in sports matters. The name of Pina, a former footballer who never reached the elite, was already resonating at that time in the offices due to his career at the head of Ciudad de Murcia. The Prosecutor's Office emphasizes that all these maneuvers, which were followed to the "millimeter", are detailed in an email intercepted from De la Riva and sent to Pozzo, among others.

The alleged “criminal” group, already infiltrated, asked to execute the bankruptcy proceedings and immediately began to deploy the first “accounting tricks.” For example, it acquired the rights to 12 players on the squad through a company based in the United Arab Emirates – for which a price of 8.6 million euros was agreed upon – according to the indictment, with “the with a view to the future conversion of the club into a Sports Public Limited Company” and with the objective of “artificially reducing the minimum share capital figure” that was going to be required.

Once this phase was over and with the club under control, the suspects supposedly activated the second part of the plan and began to “materialize the fraud strategy.” According to Anti-Corruption, they used a network of “instrumental” companies to “empty the club's treasury” and pretend that it needed an external financing channel to acquire the rights of players, which was covered by the Luxembourg company Fifteen Securitisation. However, the “most” of the funds provided by said company actually came from Granada itself, from which they had previously been extracted.

“Once this scenario was created, the fraudulent strategy was carried out through the planned execution of a set of signing and transfer operations of professional footballers,” continues the indictment from the Prosecutor's Office, which adds: “To this end, the accused They had to carefully control a multitude of variables that will affect a large group of players and a large number of instrumental entities: the contracts that have to be signed with the footballers, their amount, the dates, the movements of funds that will be used , the instrumental entities through which these funds are passed, with the necessary synchronization of payments and collections, and the accounting of the operations between Granada and Fifteen Securitisation. Some “complex movements of funds” that “actually lacked any sporting and economic logic”, but which allowed them not to pay taxes “in Spain on capital gains”.

The Prosecutor's Office places under suspicion transfers of players, at least, from 2013 to 2016, for which the Treasury was not taxed: among them, those of Guilherme Magdalena Siqueira (to Atlético de Madrid for nine million); Daniel Pudil (to Watford for 1.5 million); Allan Marques Loureiro (to Napoli for 14.1 million); Jeison Fabián Murillo (to Inter for eight million); Yacine Brahimi (to Porto for nine million, “although he declared for 6.5 million”); and Mikel Rico (to Athletic Club de Bilbao for 2.45 million). Likewise, the focus is on the relationship woven between Granada and Udinese, between whom an intense flow of money and footballers was also established.

I'm sure it's nothing to worry about. This kind of thing happens to all owners of all clubs across the world. Now click to subscribe and smash that like button.
Click to expand...

Nothing to see here. Classic Pozzo loophole. If it's not fellow champ clubs complaining, it's the Spanish tax authorities. Wec are too smart and they are too slow. They plug one loophole, we will only find another.

SkylaRose · Jan 16, 2024

If they have evidence they would table it now alongside the allegations. This could spell the end of the Pozzo reign and us without an owner worst case senario. Is AFC Watford finally becoming a possibility?

fuzzy73 · Jan 16, 2024

Otter said: ↑

Not a fan of werewolf on here then.
Click to expand...

It’s more a case of avoiding a section I don’t understand than not being a fan. The Politics section is hard enough!

wfc4ever · Jan 16, 2024

SkylaRose said: ↑

If they have evidence they would table it now alongside the allegations. This could spell the end of the Pozzo reign and us without an owner worst case senario. Is AFC Watford finally becoming a possibility?
Click to expand...

I don't think it's the sort of thing that gets done and dusted in weeks tbh.

They will find a way around it probably as has happened in the past.

UEA_Hornet · Jan 16, 2024

fuzzy73 said: ↑

View attachment 23985
Click to expand...

No doubt sauntering onto the scene with a handful of blank but signed template letters from HSBC.

SkylaRose · Jan 16, 2024

Everytime this thread is bumped I dread sombody has poaked a bear.

BeersThen · Jan 16, 2024

"You're getting slammed in the showers in the morning" at the next home game?

IRB · Jan 16, 2024

Heres to you Pozzo family, Watford hopes that you dont drop the soap ohhhh woahhhhh

wfcmoog · Jan 16, 2024

I'm not particularly worried by this. Financial allegations that I've not fully read and probably wouldn't understand if I did, in some banana Republic?

Pozzo will know what he's doing. In Pozzo we trust.

Jumbolina · Jan 16, 2024

This is fantastic!

UEA_Hornet · Jan 16, 2024

Jumbolina said: ↑

This is fantastic!
Click to expand...

Your repeated calls to that Spanish tip line have paid off!

GoingDown · Jan 16, 2024

wfcmoog said: ↑

I'm not particularly worried by this. Financial allegations that I've not fully read and probably wouldn't understand if I did, in some banana Republic?

Pozzo will know what he's doing. In Pozzo we trust.
Click to expand...

Better the devil you know.

EnjoytheGame · Jan 16, 2024

Guardian story. Spanish prosecutors recommend 12-year sentence

https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...tence-for-watfords-gino-pozzo-over-tax-claims

a19tgg · Jan 16, 2024

Tax evasion is simply good financial husbandry.

AndrewH63 · Jan 16, 2024

My take is that Pudil was a good value acquisition. We had good service from him, (superior to our current first choice), and recouped the fee when he signed for Sheff Wednesday.

A €5000,000 yacht is barely a bathtub.

I see the Pina chap accepted a plea bargain. Take a guilty finding, and then settle up the prison sentence with a bung to the Spanish Treasury.

fortunately Boris abolished the extraction treaty between Hampstead Heath and Spain so Gino can blow raspberries toward the continent.

Jossy · Jan 16, 2024

EnjoytheGame said: ↑

Guardian story. Spanish prosecutors recommend 12-year sentence

https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...tence-for-watfords-gino-pozzo-over-tax-claims
Click to expand...

"A spokesperson for Pozzo said: “The case against Mr Pozzo was abandoned in 2022 with absolutely no evidence of fraud or suggestion of criminality. Mr Pozzo refutes in the strongest possible terms he has breached Spanish tax laws in any way.”

Phew. Case closed.

wfc4ever · Jan 16, 2024

Probably be all over the media here now then if the Guardian have picked it up..

Keighley · Jan 16, 2024

a19tgg said: ↑

Tax evasion is simply good financial husbandry.
Click to expand...

After all, we all run our businesses like this.

hornetboy1 · Jan 16, 2024

wfc4ever said: ↑

Probably be all over the media here now then if the Guardian have picked it up..
Click to expand...

I wonder if the club will make any statement as to why Gino is suddenly wearing suits with arrows on them.

Steve Leo Beleck · Jan 16, 2024

Would be hilarious if after all this Mogi turns out to be the lesser of two evils and it's Pozzo that ends up in the clink.

Visions of Bayat holding a meeting with all his staff and getting questioned about his relationship with Pozzo and saying "Meester Geeno is just another owner, he is no different to any other owner, he has not been convicted of any crime yet..." whilst they grill him on why he continues to do business with this shady character...

The undeniable truth · Jan 16, 2024

hornetboy1 said: ↑

I wonder if the club will make any statement as to why Gino is suddenly wearing suits with arrows on them.
Click to expand...

Any excuse to get out of another of these supporter liaison meetings.

Jossy · Jan 16, 2024

Steve Leo Beleck said: ↑

Would be hilarious if after all this Mogi turns out to be the lesser of two evils and it's Pozzo that ends up in the clink.

Visions of Bayat holding a meeting with all his staff and getting questioned about his relationship with Pozzo and saying "Meester Geeno is just another owner, he is no different to any other owner, he has not been convicted of any crime yet..." whilst they grill him on why he continues to do business with this shady character...
Click to expand...

Although I'm sure neither will ever see the inside of a cell, if their shady dealings one day did somehow come down to that I'd bet good money on both of them selling the other out if it guaranteed saving their own ars3.

BeersThen · Jan 16, 2024

Jossy said: ↑

"A spokesperson for Pozzo said: “The case against Mr Pozzo was abandoned in 2022 with absolutely no evidence of fraud or suggestion of criminality. Mr Pozzo refutes in the strongest possible terms he has breached Spanish tax laws in any way.”

Phew. Case closed.
Click to expand...

Probably that financial guru that shrugged his shoulders at the Gino event.

Steel City Gold · Jan 16, 2024

Jossy said: ↑

Managed to translate it using a few tricks:

The darkest side of football was hidden behind the accounts of Granada C.F.: desire for “illicit” money, “opaque” corporate structures, a lack of “ethical culture”… That is the great conclusion that the Prosecutor's Office has reached. Anti-corruption in Operation Líbero, a judicial investigation that targets Gino Pozzo, owner of the English Watford and member of the clan that controls the Italian Udinese, and Enrique Pina Campuzano, alias Quique Pina, the businessman who presided over the Andalusian team of 2009 to 2016. According to the public ministry, who asks for 12 years in prison for them, both executed a “long-term criminal plan” to take control of the club and defraud millions from the Treasury through “complex” money movements linked to the signing of players through a business network.

After more than five years of investigations, the Prosecutor's Office has already put on the table its indictment in this summary, which is pending trial (the investigator issued an order to open an oral hearing a few days ago) and which has been promoted by the National Court. An investigation that led to Pina's preventive imprisonment in 2018. "The defendants launched a long-term criminal plan that, starting with the takeover of Granada C.F. in 2009 and through the execution of a complex strategy, would allow them to use the capital gains that the club obtained through the transfer of players football professionals were artificially transferred to Luxembourg and did not pay taxes in Spain, thus obtaining a notable economic profit to the detriment of the national Public Treasury,” summarizes the document signed by Anticorrupción, to which EL PAÍS has had access. To do this, adds the public ministry, the suspects “emptied the club's treasury” and “simulated” that they needed a source of financing through a Luxembourg company, Fifteen Securitisation, which allowed the Andalusian team “to undertake the signing of a group of professional players in exchange for 95% of the amount of their future transfers to other clubs.

In this way, while in the sporting field the meteoric rise of Granada was taking shape - which in just two years went from Second B to First Division, where it was consolidated -, in the offices an alleged machinery with international tentacles was being created (in Italy, Luxembourg or the United Arab Emirates) to “hide” data from the authorities and the benefits obtained from the purchase and sale of players. Anticorruption estimates that, at least, almost 9.5 million euros were not paid to the Treasury for the Corporate Taxes of 2013, 2014 and 2015.

In its letter, the Prosecutor's Office requests 12 years in prison for Pozzo, Pina and the other two accused: Raffaele de la Riva, administrator of the Luxembourg company used as an alleged front; and Jordi Trilles, collaborator of the Italian manager and former advisor of Granada. Anti-corruption also demands that million-dollar fines be imposed on all of them: 36.5 million euros on the son of the owner of Udinese, whom they point out as the ringleader; and 27.5 million to the other three, whom he defines as “cooperators.” For its part, the public ministry asks the National Court to order Granada as a legal entity to pay a fine of almost 27 million euros for three tax crimes. In addition, all of them are being asked to pay the almost 9.5 million (plus interest) defrauded in Corporate Tax installments.

Sources close to Enrique Pina insist that the accusations are unfounded and that, in the case of the Spanish businessman, he was only dedicated to sports management. In addition, they remember that the investigating judge archived the case, which was later reopened by the Criminal Chamber of the National Court. EL PAÍS has tried without success to obtain Pozzo's version through the English club that he owns.

This judicial process especially places Quique Pina against the ropes. As EL PAÍS reported, the National Court already sentenced him to nine months in prison at the end of 2022 for plotting a parallel plot, together with his parents and his sister, to avoid paying 3.2 million euros that they had to pay to the Treasury as former responsible for the C. F. Ciudad de Murcia, which the businessman also presided over. In that case (a derivative of this Operation Líbero that surrounds him with Pozzo), Pina decided to make an agreement with the Prosecutor's Office to ensure a minimum sentence - which would prevent him from going to jail -, thus admitting the "property emptying maneuvers" that He tried to hide his fortune while leading a full life - which included the enjoyment of high-end vehicles (Porsche, Aston Martin...) or a 500,000 euro yacht called El Duende.

The Anticorrupción story places the origin of the plot in 2009, when Granada was sunk in the Second Division B of Spanish football and was going through significant “economic difficulties that jeopardized its continuity.” Those responsible for the club at the time sought, through a bankruptcy process, to create an “adequate scenario” to resolve the problems and thus be able to launch a new sports project that was “economically viable.” A breeding ground that led to the landing of Gino Pozzo and his collaborators through a “set of opaque structures.”

According to the accusation, the suspects devised a plan to first gain “control of the bankruptcy process”—acquiring “a significant percentage of the credits” carried by the club—which would later allow them to rise to the top of the Andalusian team. To do this, they allegedly used a company linked to Pozzo, Daxian 2009 S.L., in which Pina was placed as administrator, who would later be named president of Granada and given “full powers” in sports matters. The name of Pina, a former footballer who never reached the elite, was already resonating at that time in the offices due to his career at the head of Ciudad de Murcia. The Prosecutor's Office emphasizes that all these maneuvers, which were followed to the "millimeter", are detailed in an email intercepted from De la Riva and sent to Pozzo, among others.

The alleged “criminal” group, already infiltrated, asked to execute the bankruptcy proceedings and immediately began to deploy the first “accounting tricks.” For example, it acquired the rights to 12 players on the squad through a company based in the United Arab Emirates – for which a price of 8.6 million euros was agreed upon – according to the indictment, with “the with a view to the future conversion of the club into a Sports Public Limited Company” and with the objective of “artificially reducing the minimum share capital figure” that was going to be required.

Once this phase was over and with the club under control, the suspects supposedly activated the second part of the plan and began to “materialize the fraud strategy.” According to Anti-Corruption, they used a network of “instrumental” companies to “empty the club's treasury” and pretend that it needed an external financing channel to acquire the rights of players, which was covered by the Luxembourg company Fifteen Securitisation. However, the “most” of the funds provided by said company actually came from Granada itself, from which they had previously been extracted.

“Once this scenario was created, the fraudulent strategy was carried out through the planned execution of a set of signing and transfer operations of professional footballers,” continues the indictment from the Prosecutor's Office, which adds: “To this end, the accused They had to carefully control a multitude of variables that will affect a large group of players and a large number of instrumental entities: the contracts that have to be signed with the footballers, their amount, the dates, the movements of funds that will be used , the instrumental entities through which these funds are passed, with the necessary synchronization of payments and collections, and the accounting of the operations between Granada and Fifteen Securitisation. Some “complex movements of funds” that “actually lacked any sporting and economic logic”, but which allowed them not to pay taxes “in Spain on capital gains”.

The Prosecutor's Office places under suspicion transfers of players, at least, from 2013 to 2016, for which the Treasury was not taxed: among them, those of Guilherme Magdalena Siqueira (to Atlético de Madrid for nine million); Daniel Pudil (to Watford for 1.5 million); Allan Marques Loureiro (to Napoli for 14.1 million); Jeison Fabián Murillo (to Inter for eight million); Yacine Brahimi (to Porto for nine million, “although he declared for 6.5 million”); and Mikel Rico (to Athletic Club de Bilbao for 2.45 million). Likewise, the focus is on the relationship woven between Granada and Udinese, between whom an intense flow of money and footballers was also established.

I'm sure it's nothing to worry about. This kind of thing happens to all owners of all clubs across the world. Now click to subscribe and smash that like button.
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Absolutely superb work, Jossy.

Thank you

EnjoytheGame · Jan 16, 2024

Hey guys, give Gino a break. How would you feel if you suddenly found that a prosecutor in another country wanted to imprison you for 12 years? Pretty bloomin' upset, I expect.

wfc4ever · Jan 16, 2024

EnjoytheGame said: ↑

Hey guys, give Gino a break. How would you feel if you suddenly found that a prosecutor in another country wanted to imprison you for 12 years? Pretty bloomin' upset, I expect.
Click to expand...

EnjoytheGame said: ↑

Hey guys, give Gino a break. How would you feel if you suddenly found that a prosecutor in another country wanted to imprison you for 12 years? Pretty bloomin' upset, I expect.
Click to expand...

Well according to the Pozzos spokesman they have nothing to worry about as the allegations were unfounded.

Be a bit strange for this to come up if the investigation had already concluded that.

ITK platypus · Jan 16, 2024

I am stunned that any of Gino's financial dealings could have been unscrupulous. Stunned.

With our greatest ever chairman Raffaele Riva guiding him this should have been avoided. I hope he doesn't get sent down too!

Oscar calling · Jan 16, 2024

hornetboy1 said: ↑

He will have his assets frozen (ouch) so we wont have to pay him back. A £70m write-off……yay. So will be debt free by July ‘24 after all
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Hopefully Elton will pay the wages when Pozzo is banged up.

UEA_Hornet · Jan 16, 2024

EnjoytheGame said: ↑

Hey guys, give Gino a break. How would you feel if you suddenly found that a prosecutor in another country wanted to imprison you for 12 years? Pretty bloomin' upset, I expect.
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To be fair it’s actually pretty impressive when you think about it. Us fans could only dream of earning enough money to be able to defraud the Spanish treasury to that extent.

luke_golden · Jan 16, 2024

We’re Watford FC, we’ll pay tax when we want!

wfc4ever · Jan 16, 2024

Looks like more has come out from the guy who first broke the story .

https://twitter.com/jjimenezgalvez/status/1747370708563312755

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