I'd appreciate others opinions on this question I was asked by a Udinese fan: Now I raise a point and I ask for your opinion. As u maybe know Pozzo's always declared that each team shall be economically independent. As u maybe know Udinese each year must sell players for about 15-18 mln ⬠to reach the budget balance. Said that, if Vydra, as I expect, will sign for Watford his next contract, which level of economical compensation should be given to Udinese,in consideration that a "missing income" from him would basically means that other Udinese players have to be sold? I would like to have your (personally and other Watford supporters) opinion on that. http://zebrefurlane.com/single/?p=8781745&t=9637662 Interesting question, given how his profile has risen so much this season. Is that just down to us or were we lucky to get him after injury. Any ideas how the Pozzo's would work the money? For me I reckon we'll get him for a nominal (any suggestions as to how much?) sum but with a hefty sell on clause. Either way we know where the money will ultimately end up. Thoughts?
To answer that with any degree of conviction, I think we'd have to research permanent moves between Udinese and Granada to see how they were handled - if indeed there are any. From what I can gather some of the loanees at Granada have been there for years.....
I don't think anyone outside the club knows how the inter-club sales will work, or where the money will go if a player is sold to a club outside the group. We signed FF to Watford, but what did we pay? Don't know. I assume that if we sold him then the money would appear on the Watford balance sheet. We are in the same situation as Udinese, we have to sell players to balance the books. The Pozzos do need to provide us with players who have Watford contracts otherwise we have little means of raising funds. I think the whole thing is extremely complex when you start going into things along the lines of where is tax on profits paid. The next thing that we will accused of is not paying our fair share of tax.
My concern with this is the current inflated transfer value of professional footballers. It would not take much for this to be undermined. All sorts of external factors might come into play. I can't see how, with the costs of running a football club, The Pozzo model could be profitable should this ever happen.
The tax thing is an important aspect to this. Any transfer of assets between two related parties should be done at an arms length price, i.e. the price it would have been had the companies been unrelated. This is so a company cannot simply transfer ownership of assets to another country to evade tax. For example if a British company buys an office building and sells it for a profit, it should be taxed on the profit. It cannot buy an office, transfer it to a subsidiary in the Cayman Islands at cost for zero profit and then sell it and pay the lower Cayman tax rate. It can transfer ownership to the Cayman company, but at the market value, meaning it would pay tax on the profit even though ownership hasn't gone to a third party. Obviously this is open to abuse as many assets are not traded on an open market and are not easy to value. Transferring a footballer's contract is not the same as transferring, say, an office block where the value can be more easily estimated (but even then it will vary from block to block). Someone might be prepared to pay £15m for him. Based on the fact he has had 2/3 of a good season in the 2nd tier and little impact anywhere else, it could be argued he is worth less than £5m. I don't know how strict the Italian tax authorities are with chasing up things like this...
Transfers between clubs with no ownership connection often include additional payment should the player be sold on at a profit. We have received income in this way many times. I would imagine that something along these lines would be arranged. I also seem to remember that there is a limit to the percentage that can go back to the original club, but I'm not sure if this was put in the regulations or just mooted.
This is my only real worry about the transfer 'embargo'. That the FL will have a problem with us signing a number of free transfers from a club when the player has an obvious value. Maybe we can just 'swap' a couple of our players - give them a season or two experience over there. As for Udinese losing out on the money, hopefully they will look at it in the long term. If Watford to get promoted and established, we will be the primary income generator, so suspect the roles will be reversed and them benefitting from players brought in from us!
I'd say there is some difference - Granada do currently have five loanees from Udinese, three of whom have been there since 2009.
Surely the sale of Vydra to Watford would be minimal, but a clause in the deal that would see 50% or more in future sales go to Udinese, if as in the case of Vydra the player is taken straight from their pool of players.
