Is that not a similar sort of arrangement that Palarse have struck with Man Utd over Zaha? You say there are lots of potential problems with being able to own multiple clubs, but fail to mention one. So - such as? You may not have realised that owning clubs in different countries is possible, but it certainly is. What annoys me more than anything is that Watford were not the first to do this in the UK, yet are being pilloried for doing so as though we were, whilst the other instance happened 10 years previously without so much as a whimper - and certainly had approval from UEFA . Pardon us for reaching the conclusion that the complaints are flowing purely because of the relative success of our particular venture. So, is length of residency the deciding factor? Our owner, who wasn't even born when yours moved here, was a resident of London well prior to taking over Watford. It's only fair to say that we too were taken over by a local businessman, who happened to have been born in italy and moved to London from Barcelona.
ofh - I believe that he has lived here (London) previously - spent time here after living in Barcelona, where he made an unsuccessful bid to buy Espanyol.
You are a fair supporter - as are a lot of your colleagues - but you cannot deny that on your boards you give Watford more stick than you give most other teams - I have not seen one reference to Huill and their Egyptian connection. I guess you are referring to the old Bellamy saga when you refer to attacks - and to the nature of your owners - but I doubt many of those came from Watford so it is not really retaliation to have a go at us. Note though what one Swansea supporter posted on your site - in the Premiership you will get attacked for being a Welsh club - as they were
Our Egyptian connection is insignificant compared to other situations. We have three Egyptian players within the whole squad. Two of them play regularly. Our senior owners (Assem Allam) was born in Egypt but fled to the UK from Gamel Abdel Nasser's regime in Egypt in 1968. His son (Ehab Allam) has only ever been to Egypt on Holiday, being born and raised in Hull. Our owners help support Al-Ahly after the Port Said Disaster which is technically our only 'connection'. We're basically acting like a Charity if you want to complain about that? If you're comparing Hull City/Egypt connection to the Watford/Udinese/Granada connection then there's something wrong. The simple fact is, they complain about you more because what is there to complain and pick at about ours?
Cardiff really aren't the team to be complaining really because they've achieved success in a way that's just as bad.
In my book there is absolutely nothing to complain about with regard to Watford either - and I certainly do not complain about Hull. The point I was making is that Cardiff fans have made a lot of the Watford situation but not other clubs - I could have used the Palace Saha loanback as an example rather than Hull. Thing is all clubs are doing their best to create strong winning teams within the rules as they stand - and that is what we are doing. Borrowing players is no worse than having rich foreigners putting £80 million into your club Oh and we actually only have TWO Italians Cassetti and Forestieri and we bought Forestieri.
Fessi is an argentinian who gained italian citizenship ! So really Marco is our italian along with Boss. Born in Rosario, Argentina, Forestieri's career began in 2003 with Newell's Old Boys but later on that year, when he was just 13, Boca Juniors bought him for $50,000. In Buenos Aires, Forestieri became well known for his way of playing, which was compared with Lionel Messi's by fans and pundits alike.
Maybe we should just spend millions on players and agents like most other teams do...that doesn't seem to be a problem as you can generally get away with having loads of debts.
I don't think the loans are a problem, like I said before you could have the exact same players on loan regardless of who your owners are so the whole loans thing is just irrelevant other than the amount of them (how many do you actually have?), you should only be allowed 5 loans in a match squad regardless of where they come from, as I don't see how them coming from abroad makes any difference to them coming from England?? But the fact your owners have a club in 3/4 of europes major footballing nations. Essentially in a way you have the financial might of 3 clubs, but like I said before it could create problems, even cheating the financial fair play where Udinese could buy your targets and loan them back to Watford at a price you can afford or even for free, which is where the advantage of having 3 clubs becomes an unfair one. I don't really know a lot about your owners, even when they started to own 2 clubs before you joined the circle, and what their intentions are, I'm guessing they are doing things legitimately and using what's already available to them for full advantage which is fair enough, no one can argue with that. But some people lurking in the shadows may have taken note of the situation and it could start a trend, how long before say Barcelona's owners decide to buy Barnsley, send all their second string players over there, win promotion to the premier league and sell on for a huge profit? How long before 20 people/companies own every club in each major european league between them? How long before our lower league clubs are full of young foreign talent and young English talent has absolutely no chances at all? Football clubs are unique and should stay unique in every way, including ownership.
For clarity, then.... sigh Bond - Wales - Academy Ekstrand - Swedish - (Udinese, probable permanent)* Cassetti - Italy - (Udinese)* Anya - Scotland - (Granada, probable permanent)* Abdi - Switzerland - (Udinese probable permanent)* Chalobah - England - (Chelsea loan... we'd love to sign him but...) Briggs - England - (Fulham loan) Hall - England - (from QPR) Deeney - England - (from Walsall) Vydra - Czech Republic - (Udinese, probably permanent)* Battochio - Argentina - (Udinese, probably permanent)* Doyley - "Jamaica" - Academy (about as Jamaican as Fessi is Italian, but there you go) Bauben - Ghana - (from Dundee Utd) Pudil - Czech Republic - (Grenada, probably permanent)* Bonham - Ireland - Academy Yeates - Ireland - (from Sheff Utd) Forestieri - Italy - (signed from Udinese, 5 year deal... pretty damned permanent that one, eh?) Geijo - Swiss - (Udinese Loan)* * = international loan, i.e. a permanent signing by the rules for everyone, including Hull City, Manchester United, Accrington Stanley and Hollowhead. No loophole, the rules, quite unlikely to be changed much if the rumour mill from the chairmen of clubs is to be believed. Only Cassetti is not likely to sign for us as he has a young family in Italy, but that may change if we get promoted. Started with 4 Englishmen, a Scot and a Welshman. We played only 2 loanees, both English and from West London Premiership clubs. Capiche?
1. It doesn't matter one iota what you see or don't see - what matters is that those in charge saw fit to set that rule........ 2. The financial might of three clubs? One of them being ourselves who last season were a gnat's bollock away from liquidation? One mid-table Serie A and the other in the relegation zone of La Liga? How much money do you imagine they have access to? And why anyway, would that be unfair compared to the finances available to the Chelsea's and Man City's of the world? Why would that be unfair compared to the shady financial dealings of, for example, Real Madrid and Barcelona? 3. Do you always see sinister characters lurking in shadows? You really need to get out more.... 4. What exactly would be wrong with that scenario? It may have passed you by, but football is a big business these days - and that's what happens in business.
Maybe people wish we had somebody like the Venky's who know nothing about football and are clearly only interested in the money. Owners like that are the REAL problem in the english game - and ofcourse a Bassini! At least ours know what the game is all about (and Hull's TBF) and have the interest of the clubs at heart (clearly true if they are letting us have so many "world class players!) As for british youngsters not getting a chance - tell Sean Murray to spend less time getting drunk/smoking and concentrate on his football ability as any professional should as he seems to be the one people say isn't getting into the side because of our loan players. There is a reason why teams look abroad at the top level - better value for money and more professional. Its unfortunate that the Premier league only had 27% or so of young talent getting regular football and ofcourse we want some of our own which was have in Hoban/Doyley/Deeney and Bond plus Hogg/Yeates on the bench.
You lot are thick as pig **** I'm not even moaning about your loans. The rules are the rules I said that, you're not breaking any of them. I said the rules are stupid that foreign loans are unlimited, but just because it's not against the rules doesn't mean it's not ridiculous. It's still perfectly legal to murder a scotsman if he's carrying a bow & arrow inside the city walls in york, is that not ridiculous too? How does a club in the championship compare to Real Madrid, Barcelona, Chelsea or Man City? (Yes their amount of money is ridiculous but that's a different argument). League standing doesn't matter, same with whatever happened before you got these owners. I know this won't happen but with these new uefa financial regulations coming in, what if your owners decided to pump silly money into Watford against these regulations, happily take the points deductions, buy £10 million players through you sent straight on loan to Udinese leaving Watford to drop down the leagues playing their Academy teams? There's nothing stopping it from happening whether at Watford or elsewhere... There's always some greedy bastard watching quietly wondering what they can exploit to make personal gain in any walk of life. I get out plenty mate. The whole integrity of the sport would be gone, it would be a load of **** if it turned out like that and you know it.
I'd never wish the Venky's on anyone. I alluded to as much that your owners seem genuine in the way they go about things. My point is that other people, much like the Venky's, could own 3 clubs to disastrous effect. I agree that alot of British youngsters tend to be big headed morons and need their mentality's sorting out big time, but we shouldn't start flooding our teams with foreign youngsters to make up for it (not a dig at you before you take that wrong), British youngsters need to be getting chances for the sake of our continually declining national team. And yes English players do seem to be stupidly over priced for what they are which is another problem, but that maybe down to the new squad rules (think at least 10 players have to be trained in England, or something like that). Good for you for bringing your own youth players through, clubs need to start doing it a lot more rather than just lazily looking to other bigger clubs and poaching their reject youngsters. We're particularly guilty of that, James Chester, Joe Dudgeon, Robbie Brady, Cameron Stewart, Corry Evans all poached from Man U as kids, Tom Cairney is the only player in our squad to have come through our youth system (and even then was snapped up when he was released by Leeds academy for 'being too small' at age 15) with the rest being established players signed. Deeney has come on leaps and bounds hasn't he, I remember only last season thinking he wasn't up to much, but every time I've seen him this season whether on't box or live he's looked spectacular.
