Lol, plenty of posters on here have willingly offered such views before without needing any encouragement.
After the last few weeks, even the most apathetic or positive of my mates have now put their hands up and said things will only get worse until Pozzo goes. How anyone can defend the current ownership after three years of absolute misery on the pitch and vile behaviour off it is a mystery.
This is my genuine opinion rather than an attempt to wind anyone up but I think they are probably the best owners we've had since Elton. This doesn't mean I think they have done a good job in the last 3 years.
I assume he believes that the club does. You may think there’s something “iffy” going on that we don’t know about? I tend to stick to the published facts in the absence of any other info.
It was suggested that something iffy might be going on. I simply asked what that might be, a hint, a clue. I didn’t ask or want a poster to incriminate himself. We are all anonymous on here but a simple “I can’t say anything more” is fine and simply leaves the forum to either base their views on what’s in the public domain or believe a poster and what he may or may not have been told by someone else who may or may not know something. We're all grown ups, we can all make up our own minds, we don’t have to agree and we can all express our views. Stop getting so melodramatic.
What published facts are there that Gino believes the club gets value? You’ve once again claimed your opinion is based on facts - yet you keep telling us you are ‘assuming’. So why is it reasonable for you to assume the club gets value but not for others to think it’s dodgy?
I’m not defending the ownership. They have done a pretty poor job in 3 of these last 4 years. I’m just refusing to get furious about something posted yesterday which I don’t think warrants it.
Nope. Because you have already stated you prefer to deal in ‘facts’ literally a couple of posts ago. So what good would me giving you ‘a hint, a clue’ have done?
You are getting very good at misquoting. I haven’t said I assume the club gets good value. I’ve simply suggested that Gino must believe that otherwise why would he continue to use him. The “published facts” are that he does continue to use him. There have been posts suggesting that maybe Gino gets a benefit that the club doesn’t see. Maybe that’s what your post insinuated too? I don’t know what that conspiracy theory could be but they are entitled to suspect that.
Because you could have given a clue about the facts you were aware of. That would have been fine. You chose not to, which is also fine. Are we done now ?
What was the whole story about a company being set up by Mogi that Gino has links to or visa versa, without doing any further digging back, it was incredibly dodgy and obviously a means to extract money out of the club. It is incredibly naive to think the Gino uses Mogi so much because it’s good for the club, it’s because it’s good for Gino. Sometimes what is good for Gino is also good for Watford, but that is in recent times that would just be a coincidence. Getting a third party agent to call a player up who he has no links to to try and sell him a move is incredibly, incredibly distasteful. Quite frankly it’s bizarre anyone would even try and play devils advocate about it, there is simply no need, it’s grubby, classless and unnecessary. But of course if you allow for the fact that Mogi would’ve stood to make money out of the deal (and by extension, so would Gino) then the lack of respect and morals do of course make a lot more sense.
A much better example would be if your company used an external recruiter to call up an employee to say they were being moved on, but that employee had never even dealt with that recruiter, not even when they got the job there in the first place. I’m sure you’d admit that would be quite weird and disrespectful?
We're fans, we're never going to have a full picture of the inner workings of the club so judgements are always best guesses based on piecemeal information. Just some of what we do know is: - Pozzo being investigated in Spain for tax evasion/fraud where the main thrust of the allegations relates to player trading and includes taking money out of the club via a network of companies that end up in Luxembourg - Pozzo previously had to settle with Italian tax authorities for tax evasion related to Udinese and player transfers. The Italian reports say that there was a significant sum of money that they just couldn't trace that had been taken out of the club - Bayat under investigation in both France and Belgium for allegations of kickbacks, inflating agent fees - in the Premier League seasons, ever since Bayat came on the scene we've always been far higher up the Agents' Fees league table than our transfer outlay would suggest we should be. In our last season there, we were only behind the big 6, despite not making any particularly big signings - someone on the board of the parent company of the club set up Bayat's UK company and retained a financial interest in it whilst we channelled a lot of our transfers through him As average fans rather than forensic accountants/financial investigators with access to the accounts, we can't say what this all means with any certainty. But people make judgements all the time on incomplete information. I don't think it's necessary to wait for criminal convictions before saying "this stinks".
I wouldn't mind so much if it was a truly top-name like Jorge Mendes but Mogi is a 2-bit agent with an impossibly **** client base.
The vast majority of players that we pay Bayat on deals for aren't his clients. We are paying him as a negotiator and to do deal with other agents/clubs.
Even Wolves fans are a bit fed up and unsure with him now. Sometimes relying on just one gets too cosy for the club and uncomfortable for fans.
Given the flimsy nature of that ' test' it probably enhances his criteria. Rotten to the core, football.
Normally it would of course be the line manager to break the news. Its a bit different at a football club - presumably usually the team manager would be the line manager and break the news ? We have a coach whose role is simply to work with what he's given and had little say (pre VI) in comings and goings. Maybe Giaretta could have done it, though not sure how much interaction with him the players would have ? Mogi is clearly an ongoing part of the players incoming/outgoing as well as a regular agent. The bit I would take issue with Gino would be if he had suggested he was nothing more than just one of the agents we use to buy players from. That's clearly bending the truth as he's clearly our favourite agent and involved in many players coming and going who aren't "his players", though he is still "one of the agents we work with". Going back to your original sentence, my co director, who isn't an employee, occasionally has to "let staff go" who weren't his direct reports.
But that’s the thing, he’s either “just another agent” or he isn’t. Gino has told us that he’s no different to any other agent, not favoured anymore than other agents and not a club employee. If that’s true then he shouldn’t be calling our players up and telling them they should move to another club. The fact that he has, strongly suggests he’s obviously a lot more than just another agent. That in itself is fine, or at least makes it less grubby if he’s actually more heavily involved with the club and makes a lot more sense for him to make that call, but that’s not what Gino has told us, so why lie to us? So Gino is either a compulsive liar, obfuscating the truth from us fans, or it’s a deeply grubby situation, either way, everything can’t be ok with it.
Yes this is all true. I just didn't see a huge issue in Mogi passing on the info to Troost, I think it just touched "The Mogi nerve" and drew the usual "vile" comments as though it was a huge issue. To be clear I would rather we didn't use him based on the fact that we do know, and I don't understand why Gino considers it a good thing to continue to use him.
But you’d surely then have an issue with Gino outright lying to you about Mogi’s involvement with the club?
I don't know exactly what Gino said. If he was answering a question on why we buy so many players through Bayat then I guess he can say he's just another agent, one of many we use, and if he brings us the best option, we buy from him. If the question was that Bayat seems to be far more than just an agent and seems to have significant involvement in many aspects of the club and the reply was he's just one of many agents we use, then I agree he has bent the truth as I suggested above.
Luckily it was a matter of public record: You can’t really play both sides on this one TuT, either it’s grubby or weird for an agent to call one of our players with no connection to that agent to sell him a move, or Gino is outright lying to us about Mogi’s involvement? You have to really pick a side with this one, it can’t all just be ok and perfectly normal.
Ok so he ducked the point about his greater involvement in the club and personal situation and just replied concerning his role as an agent and the importance of the player not the agent. He didn't lie about his involvement in the club then, he just ducked that part of the question. Thanks - useful to read what, as you say, is a matter of public record. As I say I'd rather we didn't use him so extensively given the legal issues and not sure why Gino uses him so extensively.
Looks like everyone is now agreed. Honestly - next time people whine about HB1 causing unnecessary arguments and polluting threads look at the state of this one and at least be even handed about it.
Unless engaging @The undeniable truth in conversation about dips and air fryers, it's probably best to move on.
I don't think everyone is agreed but at least the to and fro with some posters was reasonably polite and the facts were finally established.
I don't know how and why people would ever expect that Gino would tell us the whole truth about his relationship with Mogi though? It's completely naive to think that, not least because of any potential legal issues (none of which have actually come to pass yet). It was pointed out even before the event that Gino would sidestep the question, and the main surprise is that one about him was even allowed to be asked to begin with. Thinking Gino would reveal the full and precise details about his relationship with Mogi is about as foolish as thinking he'd publish to the Watford fans his personal bank accounts and list of global financial assets.
As far as I know Mogi isnt under investigation for kickbacks - that was his brother Mehdi who was being investigated for receiving kickbacks from transfers including an alleged 20k kickback from our purchase of Lukebakio. Mogi himself was being investigated/charged for money laundering, fraud, illegal exercise of the profession of players agent and gang formation. All of which were much more serious allegations I would have thought. Over recent seasons we've had a number of dealings with two of the main clubs involved in these investigations - Nantes (Where Mogi is hugely influential) and Charleroi (where Mehdi is a sporting director). The Bayo transfer especially appears suspicious when viewed under the allegations already made against Mogi/Mehdi. The whole thing isnt just a concern - it stinks and I say this as someone who generally agrees with Pob's view that the Pozzo's, for the first half of their tenure at least, were probably the best owners we've had since Elon.
I prefer to stick to the facts and based on those, it seems perfectly obvious to me that Bayat must be a good egg, or else why would we use him?
