I'm not going to disagree with any of those points Harrow. But if he can't keep his word and turn up for these kind of events, how will we trust his word with more serious issues. Surely if he was able to be at the match on Saturday he'd be able to sit in a nice warm studio and answer the phone? It's just frustrating.
You are of course right Sandy......but at the moment is there actually an issue of trust? I don't 'trust' him, but actions speak louder than words. What exactly do we have to trust him about? And if you read some of the bile on the Watford Observer site, I might have second thoughts about a Q & A even if I was 100% fit!
I think most of us just want to know where the money has come from? With most owners you can see that they have a large empire or company to fund such a project (or hobby for some billionaires). We want to be able to trust that Bassini is going to be a good thing for Watford and not a curse. Maybe he doesn't have to explain himself, I'm sure other team owners don't let the fans know what they are doing either. I must admit that if I was Bassini I'd be nervous about the Q & A. But then again, he's supposed to be a big business man, surely he's used to dealing with difficult negotiations and questions??
Why is he so scared to tell us where the money has come from if it is legit , no problem , If its dodgy money or someone else is using him for something less than honest .... drug money , gunrunning , then I would be a lot more nervous attending an open forum or radio interview! I dont trust the guy ,Had a bad feeling about him from the start , However the positive is he is delivering on a lot of promises ! Just wont talk to us! LA never talked to us ,but at least his henchmen gave us a spin, were getting diddley squat from this guy ! I`m starting to believe his money is dodgy! no facts to back that up whatsoever ,but why wont he speak to us properly and in detail! I know its his club and he can do as he damn well pleases, but it has been our club for a hell of a lot longer!
I refuse to believe that anyone other than a blood relative of Laurence Bassini would cite the saving of Winter's salary as a positive.
Are you trying to say that our 'harrowhorn' is none other than uncle Bassini??? If so, I agree completely with everything you say Harrow and can you lend me few quid!!
The phrasing was over-the-top, but I'm just trying to highlight some of the absurd things that have been used to flesh out the "positives" list. I take Harrow's point that Bassini is not the anti-Christ, but until he comes good on some of the more substantive pledges and in progresses (which he might), I'd say he is very much in "debt" on the plus/minus scale.
I don't think Bas wants to ruin the club or anything which has been suggested elsewhere but fans and people in general like to have confidence in people running a business which usually comes from hearing their own plans and ideas. Sadly it seems that won't happen for a whille. For what its worth I understand Bassini doesn't actually have to tell people where he is getting money from but again is might re-assure people if they did know. Maybe as somebody pointed out elsewhere like most people involved in football he just doesn't care what the fans think?
I think Winter was a good guy NNW- just trying to point out positives for negatives (same as more Sarries money/Sarries still here). Look: He's not going to explain where his money came from. If he's fronting for somebody else, he will be under instruction not to reveal who (or there would be no point, obviously). If it's his money, made over a very short space of time (which I still have difficulty in believing), he is not going to reveal it because, unlike someone like Whelan at Wigan or Gibson at Boro, whose business empires are well documented, he has no need to - and you or I would not want to give out that sort of information. Maybe some of it is less than wholesome - even more reason to keep schtum. Also, revealing the extent of his wealth would compromise the clubs ability to negotiate. At the moment no-one has any idea how deep his (WFC's) pockets are. The only reason he has to explain this stuff is to keep us happy - and to be honest, were I in his position I would give very little weight to that. What are the downsides ? That he has overstretched himself and the club can't pay it's way? We have no evidence of that, and if we did, what could we do about it? That he wants to make money out of the ground? I don't believe that the improvements and works that are currently under way would have been started were that the case. All of the 'Bas out' talk is frankly pathetic. As Bill Kenwright at Everton has found, there is not a steady stream of Arab sheikhs looking to bankroll football clubs, and if Everton can't find a buyer, what price crappy little Watford? We are stuck with the man, and although having a dig on internet forums is jolly good fun, at the end of the day it's completely inconsequential.
Hence my decision to restrict my criticism of him to internet forums, and indeed make a point of urging people not to lambast him directly at the fan's forum and tonight's Q&A But the fact of the matter is that there are questions that need answering, and the internet is the least destructive place to be open and honest about what we think about them not being answered.
