Potential Minority Investment

I also heard something a couple of weeks ago, second hand info but via a trustworthy source.

An investment group are currently quite far progressed in their due diligence. There is a Brazilian connection apparently, but quite what exactly I don’t know. That’s all I have.

All the usual caveats - several parties have got to this stage before but nothing has materialised. And this was before Trump set fire to the global economy, who knows what effect that might have.

 

If they’re quite far advanced in due diligence, then it probably won’t be long before they pull out.
It’s the Byzantine inter-weaving of the operations of WFC and Udinese that seems to scare off investors.

 

Was there no sniff because he didn't even contemplate selling up then, or because the price asked was too high ? Certainly he'd have been able to sell at a higher price then, if he wanted to sell, than he can now, and potentially will ever be able to in the future. Boat missed.....

 

There would've been suiters. Especially when they floated the Bushey new stadium idea.

 

Who knows - but I personally am of the thought that if there was solid interest in buying the club at the height of its recent success, it would have been pretty well reported. As it was, at our peak (2019), Chelsea changed hands (which was enforced) and no one else in the top division did. And then Covid came along 6 months(ish) later.

Again - I’m not debating that we were a much more attractive proposition then and should/could have had suitors.

I’m just wary of going too far down the tangent of it actually being realistic given the lack of stories at the time. I think it would have been reported, if even only minimally somewhere. And it wasn’t.

Anything else is supposition.

 

Shame that Burnsy guy isn’t around anymore. He’d have known for sure.

 

May be nothing related to this but companies house confirms that Gino is now back resident in Italy.

He originally changed his "country where resident" to England back in 2017 but on 27 March 2025 this was changed to Italy.

The next day the accounts for Hornets Investment Ltd (the UK holding company of Watford FC) filed its accounts for June 2024 -nothing of note in those as they mirror that of Watford FC and confirms Gino's Luxembourg company Hornets Management SARL continued to lend c£50m to the club plus c £5m of interest accrued.

Maybe he won't be attending any more games -if indeed he has been or possibly its a tax driven change

 

Interesting and well spotted ! Maybe they are selling but you’d think he would hang around to help with handover/ getting it over the line ? Maybe tax driven as you suggest.

 

Maybe any potential investor has said ‘I refuse to deal directly with that megalomaniac

 

AJ hasn’t ruled himself out.

 

Saw his recent interview he said the plan is to get the Saudis involved. Could be interesting.

 

Pray to Allah.

Pray to all known deities,GT included.

 

Whilst I think there is something afoot, I don't think it's anything to do with AJ. This seems to just be all coming from a Watford fan asking him in an interview and him saying there's been interest before.

 

Hope your gut feel is right.

 

For those that haven't seen the interview, here is what AJ said:

"That was an opportunity that presented itself, nothing has come of it yet, it's a serious investment and if it comes off it will be one that, you know, should do well and if we don't do it, good luck to them anyway."

 

Absolutely no evidence to support this but I have a gut feeling there is something in the offing. Keep hearing random little rumours all over the place at the moment.

 

Sounds like AJ is reflecting on his disappointment that his £150 digital investment was refunded after it was abandoned.

 

As long as they have some money, some business sense and some ambition - none of which Pozzo has - I don't care who it is.

 

This chap was spotted going into the offices with a set of keys.

 

While I think our time with the Pozzos have run its course, and has done so for some time. I think it's quite disingenuous to state that when they have delivered the second most successful era in the club's history. The Pozzos had money (unlike Baz) but you only need look at some EPL clubs to see that you need a **** ton more than they had. The business sense, while obviously worked for a while shows that to compete you have to make more decisions that are make or break, damned if you do, damned it you don't if you like; they were never in the position of City, for example, where they could buy a player for £100m then freeze him out for over a year. I've said it before and I'll say it again, for most EPL clubs, as a club you are one bad transfer window away from oblivion, they are many examples of this in the Championship and lower.

 

The sooner this f**king helmet goes the better. Any investment/buy-out that happens can't come soon enough!

 

You’re being very generous. The gap now is much larger than it was and Palace, Brighton, Brentford, Wolves, Fulham and Forest all bridged it and appear to be stable EPL clubs.

 

In all cases you quote, except Brentford …and maybe CP, thanks to a shed load of money to invest which we simply didn’t have.

 

Brentford and Crystal Palace did not have shedloads of money as you note. And I think coordinating minority investment (which is what Palace did) should have been part of the plan.

To add to this, you have no business owning an entire PL football club if you ‘only’ have £200m. Just not appropriate.

 

It was me, I just got back from Riyadh a few hours ago.