An excellent piece. I've heard now from a number of people that we are expected to be in administration by the end of the season. I hope they're wrong...somehow, i have to wonder if they are.
Absolutely ****e article. Nothing new and a gross distortion of the facts. 1 - I know of only 1 'Bazini supporter' - a nutcase who posts on the wobby site. 2 - regardless of how you manipulate the presentation, Bazini has risked a considerable sum - if it all goes tits up and reverts to Ashcroft, he will be lucky to get a penny back. 3 - I suppose we should have gone with one of the other multi-millionaires who were queuing up to bail us out?
I'd be interested to here who your informants are, H. Because on the face of it, if it is true that we are about to go into administration, the Bazini business plan appears to be: 1 Put £6.5m or so into a football club that is losing £4-5m a year. 2 at 4 months sell a couple of players at roughly what they might have been expected to fetch to keep the club going for another 9 months. 3 at 6 months start work on improving the stadium 4 at 12 months run out of money and put the club into administration, defaulting on loans to Lord Ashcroft and walking away with nothing. Good plan.
Obviously i can't give names, especially as one of them has been well known at Watford FC. I trust his judgment more than most. None of us know what really is going on, but we can take the information we're given, and make our own assumptions. I choose to trust the knowledge i've been given. Time will tell if that is the right thing to do or not. Honestly? I hope it's wrong, obviously, as you're right, there aren't too many alternatives.
I found the article a little arrogant in its' attitude towards some fans,ie. about people who are not in a position to change anything and are simply trying to be optimistic and hope for the best - which is only natural. Naturally. questions are going to be asked about a person who has changed his name.has been bankrupt, and who within 3 years goes from social security claimant to Football club owner without any apparent transparency on his side. However, as long as we are the only ones asking questions about this (and not the Inland Revenue or Met. Police - and I've not heard any suggestions that this is the case) then we are obliged to find him innocent until proven guilty.
People will say things until they get some words from Bassini..ok he was ill but isn't helping himself.
Unfortunately Baz has brought so much of the questioning that we the humble fans do upon himself. By whatever yardstick you choose he has not been forthcoming about where he is trying to take us. I don't mean that he should be telling us how he is funding this, as far as I am concerned that is his business, but he does need to say will the monies needed to see the club through times of cash shortage and bond repayments be available. I remember him saying clearly that when his plans were made public, then we would be very pleased indeed. I am still waiting to know what the master plan is. As far as I can see some new seating has been installed and the PA system upgraded, but this is tinkering around the edges. The Red Lion work is underway, but is that for the benefit of the club or the Yellow and Red Lion Co.Ltd? The players that have been brought in, and you can argue for ever if they were the right ones, have been signed at a small cost compared to the incoming money, but then that was laid down in the sale agreement. Another part of that sale agreement was that the SW corner was to be completed. I know from experience that contract talks and pricing can become extended, but the facts about the building works could have come from Baz, without waiting for the forum. The man is clearly poor at PR and it has been said that he dislikes giving interviews of any sort. What frightens me is the fact that he acts impulsively we are told. When you are having to make hard decisions about how you spend the companies little money, do you suddenly decide to go off and spend on a pub? Just look at the number that close each week and remember that last time someone looked into the economics of reopening it they couldn't make the numbers add up. Clearly he would not have had a plan to put us into administration, that would have made little sense, but I do wonder if by his incompetence he could lead us towards it without realising what he is doing?
Indeed M Frenchie. Nobody is claiming he plans to put us into Administration. What is being said is that we are going to be in Administration by the end of the year, simply because he doesn't really know what he's doing. He may have all best intentions, but a little knowledge is dangerous.
If the worst came to the worst we still wouldn't go into Administration as the club would revert back to the Bond holders and as we all know - 'Ashcroft doesn't do Administration'. So I don't know what we have to lose? We put up with an elusive and silent owner who so far has not failed the club financialy (bills and re-payments as far as I know are being paid on time) and will in time deliver on his promises (in which case we are all happy) or he will fail in which case the debt would (has been already) be reduced and Ashcroft will be able to look for another buyer. I don't like Bassini's secrecy and he could help himself a lot if he would open up and the longer it goes on the worse the press and the fans will get. We need to see real progress of the projects.
The trouble is all this has been done to death so many times - in the face of zero information from Baz we are in the dark and can at best speculate - however that is not how I wanted our club to be run - but I don't have the millions to pour into it and know no-one else who does so have to put up with it alongside the rest of our fans.
I am afraid that it is a bit like a WUM who if he keeps at it long enough you feel that you have to say something. In this case he is getting the same reaction by saying nothing.
The article does not add much to what has been endlessly discussed here. And I agree it is a bit patronising to those fans who say "give him more time...etc" --though I have to say, those fans do themselves seem a bit naive. If Bassini does default on the bond repayment, or in some other way breaches the terms of the takeover, the club does NOT "revert to the bondholders.."--they can then demand their money in full and at once. How they would actually behave in such a situation is a matter of speculation. As for administration, any of several parties could put us into administration--any of the bond holders if they did not get their money back on the agreed schedule; the bank, if we could not service the overdraft; or Bassini himself, if we could not repay the intercompany loan , which he has made available. (This is assuming we have not in the last 7 months run up debts to the Inland Revenue.) Our total debts at the moment are about £13M I think--small beer for Manchester City,but quite enough to sink our club should any creditor get cold feet.
We can only speculate of course, but from what we do know, Baz is either: 1 Putting his own money in and has very very deep pockets and will be able to continue to bankroll us for the forseeable and sees it has a high risk punt 2 Putting his own money in, has limited funds and is a (therefore) complete lunatic 3 The front for other investors to whom punting £15+m on the slim chance of riches in the Prem falls into the category of high risk venture 4 Using the club to somehow launder ill-gotten money (doubtful as laundering requires some money to come back) 5 Your Suggestions here!
It is unlikely that Bas would go from being bankrupt /on the dole to having "very deep pockets" without leaving some trace in the media--or being reluctant to tell us how he did it--so no 1 can be dismissed. He is not using the club for money-laundering purposes--that is preposterous . So we are left with 2 and 3. He is an unlikely "frontman " since he is so bad at managing the media , but there could well be someone else's money behind him---which just begs the question of who, and what might be their motives? Most likely is that he is a person of substantial but not unlimited means, who has followed his fantasy by buying into a football club, having persuaded the doctor to join him. He now finds he is out of his depth, floundering and quite possibly at the limit of his (and the doctor's) resources. This seems to be his history with previous business ventures-- a history that is repeating itself at Watford. Bassini can probably keep the ship afloat for another year or so. He could keep the club in working capital and even repay the next installments of the bonds by selling Mariappa, Sordell and Loach in January or June, though this would not finance ground improvements too. He can sell next seasons ticket revenue in advance. The crunch point will come at the start of next season, and then into 2013; we have no other obvious player assets to sell, and no other sources of revenue, yet are committed to pay off debt and have a predictable shortfall of working capital. So how will he cope?
I have just read through the Supplemental Deed of Covenant and Guarantee, dated 10th March 2011: Watford Leisure PLC and The Watford Association Football Club Limited and find that anyone who puts the club into administration triggers the immediate repayment of the bonds. So should Bassini do that he would simply create a problem for himself. The bondholders are unlikely to do it while the money is still coming in. However as Roger says, it is not exactly clear as to what would happen if there was a default. It looks as if we would be totally in their hands. One additional thought though is that Barclays have continued to provide overdraft facilities, which I think have priority over claims should there be a default. Presumably they must be happy with Bassinis stewardship of the club to allow that to continue.
But seriously Roger - do you think he'd be able to get to 2) without leaving a trace? - he would need to have accumulated at least £15-20m to even contemplate sticking £6-8m into a football club. For that reason, my (notional) money is still on him being a front. It would be nice to have some answers, but in the meantime what can we do?
I don't think the article adds much to what has sensibly been discussed on here at length. What it does do is highlight two of the three main concerns that I have about Baz, which is the source of his money and what he has put into the club so far. His supporters do keep pointing to his cash injections thus far - BUT there is absolutely no proof of him having put in large sums of cash at all, either in the annual report or elsewhere (sorry, scaffolding round the Red Lion doesn't count). Secondly, even if there were, it DOES matter where that money might be coming from despite what some people seem to think. Getting large sums of cash to fritter away from Mummy and Daddy is much different to borrowing that money from Wonga.com.
Actually BH, to your first point, there is proof of him putting money in. http://www.watfordleisureplc.com/offer-docs This link takes you to the working capital loan http://www.watfordleisureplc.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/390-09-WorkingCapFac-£3.5m-10.03.11.pdf and within the offer document the terms of the loan repayments are detailed.
