from BBC Website Last week Slater said that the owners were not interested in selling the Club but they were interested in getting external investment..... but it sounds like De Laurentiis wants to own a Club in England..... I really do not want to be the next Watford AllHell
If we got some class acts like Vydra for us I wouldn't complain, then again I don't really want to be a club without English oweners... this is where someone tells me slater is an Aussie or something. It has pros and Cons, more money I suppose would be nice
And yet everyone wanted Zaheel (or whatever they were called) to take us over! They were'nt English, so by the definitions here we would'nt have been Charlton. I'm very wary of these millionaire types who pump money in but may yet get bored and march off leaving the club up the creek, but who knows. Being a nursury club for Nápoles may not be the way forward, but on the other hand, we might end up with players whose major talent is a bit more than simply 'tries very hard'!
Our owners seem to be investing quite heavily in the Academy, as a contrast to Watford, who are downgrading theirs to Category 3. To me Watford is such a ghastly way to run a club that I couldn't bring myself to support them in the play-off. I don't believe our owners are so desperate that they would prostitute the club in this way.
If you already owned a large European club and wanted to buy an English club, would you buy a fairly big one or a small club with reasonable potential, ie surrounding population, limited local competitors? The bigger the existing club, the more likely you could bring it into Europe, but if it's more of a 'potential' gamble, it could work out fairly cheap and you could realise the gains quickly. If you own a big club already, would you want the second club to be challenging in Europe too? Maybe it's just me. I'd probably buy Walsall. And I will when I make my billions. I don't think Zabeel would necessarily have meant the end of Charlton, but something like this probably would. Not sure if they'd want to buy a London club. Coventry would be a natural fit I think
The academy was never any particular category, so they haven't downgraded the academy at all. In fact, Waftord were facing administration/relegation/bankruptcy, so having a Cat 1 academy (which would cost around £2mil a season) would not have been viable. The "ghastly way to run the club" (which has actually worked out quite well for Watford) appears to have been the only option.
It's good to get a Watford perspective on this, but don't you have the most uneasy feeling that at a moment's notice, your owners could pull out and not only would the club be plunged into financial trouble, but because of the close playing ties with your Italian partners, could be suddenly looking for a dozen players, with no money to attract them? Frankly, supporting a club with that Sword of Damocles hanging over it would scare the life out of me.
Mr Evans has himself as a Leicester fan. Maybe he could explain how an Academy can be no particular category? Is this a 4th option? Category 1, 2, 3, or No Particular?
Watford have had a very successful academy for a long time, way before the idea of having categories came about. If you look at how many players came through it and played for the first team in the season just finished, you will find that only one team in the Championship had more getting their chance. There is no change to the set up, which had a number of PL and foreign clubs looking at how it was run because it was so successful. The idea of categories came about through the desire of the PL to poach players who because of the then distance restrictions would join the smaller clubs. Get rid of the restrictions and we will be able to get players from where ever we want, was their thinking. Also we can take any player who shows a lot of promise from the smaller club and pay them peanuts on a fixed scale. Finally unless you agree we will reduce the payments made to the FL from us. Total blackmail! The result of all this nonsense is that a number of clubs have closed their academies all together because they just cannot afford the demands made. Bringing on younger players was often the means by which a small club could keep going, selling on for a reasonable amount to a higher league team. Now that has been denied to them. Would you like to defend this?
Glad you agree Billy. There is a lot more to this Academy set up than is obvious until you see what and who it is for.
Last season in the Championship, the team that used most players from their academy was Middlesbrough. Second was Watford. At watford we are led to believe that the academy is being run as it has always been run, despite attempts by the FA to destroy the system. Of course, who knows what the future will bring but I have never felt this secure about our team, and academy, since the days of Elton John and Graham Taylor. To use Tewkesbury's terms, The sword of Damocles has been removed by the current owners. Not for nothing has the previous owner been banned from involvement in football for three years (and you should have heard his delight when we lost the play-off final!)
Barcelona are now complaining about Premier League clubs nicking their 16-year-olds before they have signed pro forms. Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool have taken 3 of their best prospects. Barca mistakenly believe that English league clubs are protected from this type of raid.
