Looked elswhere for this but didn't see it anywhere so here it is. A measured and mature response from GFZ. http://http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/21522843
Typical BBC - rehash an old article without checking facts, and include the same mistake as they did first time around.
Ipswich boss Mick McCarthy was asked for his thoughts on the situation after the game and gave the question short shrift. "I don't give a hoot what they're doing personally," he said. "If it's within the rules, it's within the rules. Let them get on with it. We've played against a better team than us who have played within the rules of the game. "You won't get me moaning about it"
One other thing that has been missed by the ****e hacks and other so called football pundits, is the positive effect it has had on some of our home grown. I have never been a great fan of Doyley, but with a quality wing-back playing in front of him and allowing him to focus on defending and supporting the WB, his performances this season have been outstanding. Same with Hogg and Deeney. But as I keep saying - f*** 'em all
Read an enjoyable article on FB from the NY Times of all the papers, sadly I cannot copy and paste as I am on the iPad and not up to speed on how to do that. I will try and find it again though
GLOBAL SOCCER 3 Clubs, One Owner, and a Lot of Questions By ROB HUGHES Published: February 20, 2013 FACEBOOK TWITTER GOOGLE+ SAVE E-MAIL SHARE PRINT SINGLE PAGE REPRINTS LONDON — Giampaolo Pozzo and his family own three European clubs — Udinese in Italy, Granada in Spain and Watford in England. Enlarge This Image Luca Zennaro/European Pressphoto Agency Antonio Di Natale as Udinese lost to Genoa, 1-0, over the weekend in Serie A. The Times's soccer blog has the world's game covered from all angles. Go to the Goal Blog He shuttles players around from one team to the other, like books from a central library, or men passing through transit camps. Curiously enough, for now at least, the Pozzo approach appears to work. Udinese, in his native Friuli Venezia region of northern Italy, recruits players from a multitude of countries and sells the best of them, like Alexis Sánchez to Barcelona, for a huge profit. But after two seasons in the top four of Serie A, Udinese still enjoys a respectable ninth place in Serie A at the moment. Just as long as Udinese has Antonio Di Natale scoring goals, as he has for this team through nine years, it seems the Pozzo family club remains buoyant and relatively prosperous. But in 2009, spreading his wings, Pozzo extended a benevolent hand to the struggling, almost defunct Spanish side, Granada. He offered it a partnership: players surplus to Udinese’s needs would be lent to help lift Granada to the top tier of La Liga, where, albeit with a bit of a struggle, it remains today. In the summer of 2012, Pozzo added Watford, a club just outside London, to his family portfolio. The attractions were that Watford, in the days when the singer Elton John owned it and when Graham Taylor managed the team, could compete in the top tier of English soccer. John and Taylor remain honorary life presidents but are no longer active in running the club. But Watford is not in the Premier League at the moment, which was why Pozzo could acquire it for a comparatively small, and undisclosed, sum. Italian team owners and presidents have often been decent judges of the player market. Gianni Agnelli at Juventus, the Moratti family at Inter Milan, Paolo Mantovani at Sampdoria — even, when his mind was on it, Silvio Berlusconi at A.C. Milan — could all spot players to buy. And if they did not, they knew good talent scouts. The Pozzos — Giampaolo and his son Gino — had apparently been told that there was talent growing in Watford’s youth academy. They chose as their team manager Gianfranco Zola, who was idolized as a player with Chelsea and who had been harshly treated and fired when new owners took over the team he coached at West Ham United. So Pozzo hired Zola to give the give the team his insatiable enthusiasm. And, while Watford waits for the young players to mature, another pool of spare Udinese players was flown in. Currently, Watford is flying. It lies third in the division just below the Premiership. It is the top scorer by far, and if it can maintain that form, it has every chance of hitting the jackpot. Because of a new TV deal that comes into play in August, promotion to the Premier League this season is worth more than $100 million to any club. Watford might by then engage full-time the players who are now of no fixed abode. No fewer than 11 men are registered to Watford on a loan basis. They include seven Udinese players — a mixed bag of a Brazilian, a Czech, an Argentine, an Italian, a Swede and two Swiss. An eighth Udinese player, the striker Fernando Forestieri, started on a loan but signed a permanent contract with Watford in January. And so it goes on. Another player on loan belongs to Chelsea, yet another to Liège, Belgium, and two more are from Granada. They all now are sharing the English shire with the squad that Zola coaches, even though they do not belong to Watford permanently. It all flies in the face of those who reason that, like most workers, the players need a home to call their own. At Watford, the group seems to gel pretty well, for all the rootlessness. Zola seems to make it fun. The Pozzos appear to know what they are doing. And the big league, the big, big profit, could be just around the corner. 1 2 NEXT PAGE »
Does anyone else get the urge to tell these so-called journalists one by one, who are regurgitating the same misinformed drivel about our club, to just turn off the record? I mean, at first it was annoying, then infuriating, and now its just plain boring
If they are all simply regurgitating it, then surely logic says that, if one recants, they would all recant. Wonder what it would take to twist the arm of a certain M. Samuels?
