For The Kieran Maguire Wannabes....

It's a joke of a salary but that's the one bit of the club's operations that has actually been a consistent success, isn't it?

 

Honestly couldn’t tell you. Our revenues have gone up but I wouldn’t know if that is just par for football clubs across the board of Dux has outperformed on that front.

Presumably he also has a responsibility for cost management as well which we seem rather poor at compared to our peers (the old “other operating expenses”).

 

Quite right. This is all just a function of the game moving from being one watched mostly ‘live’ to one watched hugely more on TV(etc.). Now you can ‘support’ any team, or indeed any player, you like and know as much about them as anyone else. Years ago, if someone said “I follow Man U”, you would consider they were lying unless they regularly went to Old Trafford, because otherwise they just saw them on Match of the Day.

 

If you look back at some of the activity we were doing, i'd call it weird. I sort of know some of the team who were in the marketing dept at the time and they had an attitude of 'we don't care about the fans who are already here, we need to bring in a global audience' and it was quite obvious as they very clearly starting taking the likes of us for granted.

Completely agree with your point about the local area, a club like Watford is unlikely to bring in many (if any) global fans who have no attachment to us in some way. For instance, at a stable mid-table PL club I used to work for their global database was about 6% of their overall audience, it's tiny. When the big 6 plough huge sums into their marketing & have global stars, there isn't much point competing with them.

I grew up in Potters Bar, I don't know a single other Watford fan from my area or from my school and the club didn't do any marketing or activity in an area that is less than 20 mins drive on a good day. But they were going after fans in India...

 

And they are right. People will still keep going back regardless. There a number of people on this forum who moan relentlessly about 'happy clappers just putting up with it' but they are still attending as much as the 'happy clappers'.

I couldn't tell you the last time I spent any money in the ground. Each year I buy my season ticket, ten or so tickets for my daughter along with the latest shirt for her. If the club were selling out week after week I'm probably a fan they would want to see the back of so they could replace me with someone who will spend a lot more.

The broader picture is a lot of Watford fans are moaning the same moans that fans of lots of other clubs have. Football clubs typically aren't well run bar a few exceptions. People used to get giddy over the clubs finances but I have watched it for long enough now to not worry about it. If Watford get a billionaire owner or are absolutely skint it has zero impact on me or my finances.

 

I am not attending and will not again until the odious presence in our boardroom is removed. Pozzo is not running this club the same as a typical owner.

You are a docile flaccid blob of putty.

 

You may not be, but plenty are.

Football is broken on so many levels, it’s a shame to see but that’s the game now. Two choices - go and accept it for what it is or stop going. Sadly, neither make a big difference.

 

It's also just football really, most of us have more important things in our live to worry about. I'd say come 5 pm on a Saturday, even if we've been battered, most fans are over it.

 

It should be the goal every season for every club in the champ.

 

Yes the reality of life in the prem for a small club is that the huge hike in revenues is more than matched by a huge hike in costs if you want to invest in players who might keep you there. Posters talk about wasting all the riches of the prem years but in fact those prem years are the main reason for the issues we have today, spending to try to remain there and ultimately spending poorly. The parachute period for us has been a period of trying to get our finances in order to work out how the hell we will ever pay back our prem debts rather than any great advantage over clubs without parachute payments..

 

Yes this but the costs are inflated by those who can afford to lose millions bankrolled by Middle Eastern states, Tim whatsisface at Chelsea, presume Ratcliffe at MU etc. These guys aren't in it to make a profit, it's all about ego and status but drives the cost of decent players through the roof. Most clubs in the prem lose significant money each year just by surviving in the prem.

 

I couldn't agree more, we have had a fantastic ride, I've seen us at the bottom of the bottom division and top of the top one, how many other clubs have done that and get to 2 FA Cup finals? All for the cost of a season ticket, whether Pozzo has or does make money is his problem, he has financed the recent 6 seasons in the Premier League which brings the huge adjustment we are currently going through. We can all comment on the bad decisions made re players and contracts etc but there have also been quite a few good ones!

The ground has been improved over recent years and is fit for purpose for a club our size, we would all like us to be further up the league and in the P.L but we have a lot to be thankful for, its not that long ago we were playing the likes of Bury, Scunthorpe and Stockport!

 

Yup, and that problem filters down. I think I saw that Leyton Orient are currently losing £75k a week - any business outside of football and most professional clubs would be out of business. I'd rather Watford weren't run that way, but they are in the same financial position as the majority of EFL clubs.

 

Just noticed this thread. Very interesting. Is it fair to summarise as follows:

- we will be external debt free so technically SD has told the truth in this respect
- we owe 60m ish to GP (not sure what our debt was if anything pre-pozzo)
- in exchange for debt owed to GP we have gained better club infrastructure and some memories of the second most successful period in our miserable history
- we are effectively back to where we were previously as a champ team whereby we have to sell players to survive and generate a transfer kitty
- our best saleable asset is Asprilla
- dubious decisions have been made in the past and Duxbury is paid too much

Not sure if thIs a fair summary. If it is, although our situation is not great, its not as disastrous as i have feared from reading some peoples posts. We're clearly not in a great position and are not going to be a top championship team but im not sure we are dissimilar from many other championship teams. have i fundamentally misunderstood something?

 

You are clearly an amoeba who should still be wringing their hands in angst at the succession of fark-ups that saw us stupidly relegated 4 seasons ago…..
Although TBF, the ‘mere £60 mill’ owed to GP is only vaguely manageable as long as he doesn’t want his money back, or isn’t forced to get it out of the club any which way he can.

 

Think that's fair. If we can unlatch Macquarie from the Watford teat that would be a win of sorts.

The unknown of course is how we keep servicing the operational deficit going forward. Pozzo seemingly not having deep enough pockets (or potentially the wish) to keep bailing us out and the quality of the players on the books for potential resale and thereby plug the gap continuing to drop.

 

I probably am an amoeba. That aside, if GP were to sell the club he would not come out of this badly. OK its never gonna sell for the touted £200m, but even if he got a modest £70m that would cover his personal debts and he would have had a good laugh over the last 10 years not having to communicate with fans and having presumably taken a decent annual salary.

Again I'm not sure if I'm missing something obvious but it doesn't seem that bad a business venture especially in the context modern football. I must be missing something.

 

It’s possibly the idea that GP could come anywhere near recouping £60 million…absolutely no chance IMO.
And UEA has highlighted the issue of ongoing debt servicing being a potentially big problem.

 

The Pozzos will lose a huge amount of money on their sale of WFC looking simply at the price they would get on selling vs the funds they have put in and won't get back. As I said before, from a purely financial POV, they should have sold the club as soon as they reached the promised land and stayed up one season, and used a tiny fraction to buy Charlton or similar and repeated the exercise. Instead they thought they could keep a club in the prem indefinitely even with their insignificant resources based on their success in Italy. However staying in the prem is vastly more difficult than keeping above the dregs at the bottom of Serie A.

 

I think it's a reasonable summary, but you are missing the inexplicable £19m apparently owed to Udinese and the terrible dealings / negligence in the transfer market that led to the pot less state we exist in.

 

Again, not sure if I am missing something but why will they lose a huge amount? If they sell aspirilla and kone for 15m that could bring the debt owed to GP down to 45/50m. Surely the club would sell for 50m to cover his debt. Have they put in more money than is owed to GP beyond the initial purchase price?

 

Player trading as mostly in one direction recently so you have proven it can't be that surely, also presumably any transfer payments owing would appear in transfer debt pot?? Or for anyone who knows about these things is it separated as being interclub, or included in both?

Very wierd but guess we will never know, must be franchise fees!

 

Andrews for £60m to Liverpool.

You heard it here first.

Problem solved.

 

Without wishing to be macabre how old is Pozzo Senior?

What is his wealth?

Kind Hearts and Coronets...

"I shot an arrow in the air,he came to land in Berkeley Square".

 

Has said he won't ask for it back but you never know! If that's the only debt left then I think we're ok

 

True, but who knows what eventual fall-out there may be from all the various legal ‘situations’ he finds himself embroiled in?

 

Question for the financial savvy: Why are JP/Sarrs transfers under last seasons accounts when it took place in this financial year?

 

I dont think there was a commentary in the accounts about which sales took place on or before 30/6/23-there was in previous years. I recall an article saying JP was early June but i think Sarr is in the current FY

 

Kieran Maguire was just on talk sport, apparently we make the lowest amount per head per game from our fans - £16.02, I’m not sure how many leagues that covers as I missed that part. The highest was Spurs at £71. figures include ticket prices as well.

 

It's based on the 20 clubs in the PL in 2021/22 I think. I can't find the chart right now but it's been doing the rounds on X for a few days.

 

One of those things where it’s hard to say if it’s a good or bad thing or a combination of both, on the face of it good we’re not ripping our fans off and maybe providing good value, but on the other hand maybe our match day offering is very poor and our commercial team are failing at not raising more revenue for the club.

KM did say on Talk Sport it’s likely because we have a ground in a town and most fans will be local so won’t spend much at the ground.

 

If they served a decent cup of tea that I didn't have to queue 20 minutes for they'd make an extra couple of quid out of me per visit.

#Gamechanger

 

Speed of service can surely not help either. Some of the staff on the counters resemble the Sloth in Zootroplis

 

The food is ***** and over-priced, especially considering there are plenty of alternative options within yards of the ground. And yes, if it was possible to fit in going to the loo and getting a drink/snack at half time without missing any of the game then I for one would probably spend a few more quid.