Watford need promotion this year.

[ballisimo]

I would imagine the football league will be looking into this massive loophole in the loan system with regards to loaning players from foreign parent clubs. Watford are not a team exactly rolling in money to buy a whole new squad, so surely if they bottled it this season and the rules were changed they might find themselves in deep doo doo!

[whoareyaaa]

If there previous 4 seasons are anything to go by they will be back to the usual 14th place.

[ballisimo]

If there previous 4 seasons are anything to go by they will be back to the usual 14th place.

Absolutely Watford I'm almost certain will not have this chance again. And if they do not get promoted this year will go back to being a nothing relegation dogfight team.

[john ridley]

enjoy getting fvcked over every week if you go up ,shit ground,shit fan base, even blackpools ground was better and thats saying something

[Guest Bilo]

I really, really hope they fvck up the final.

[AKCJ]

|Personally think Brighton will win.

 

 

I thought we'd lose to Brighton in the final.

 

Surprising because halfway through the season I was adamant Brighton didn't have what it takes.

[Watford1982]

I tried to clear this up on another thread - Thank you for your concern, but we really won't have a problem next season regardless of which division we end up in, as a) we're not under a transfer ban, we just have to ok any dealings with the FA to ensure they are above board, as sadly our previous owner wasn't, and has since been banned from football, and b) the players are actually just as much ours as they are Udinese's or Granada's, since we all draw from the same pool of players, scouted from all over the world, and for reasonable fees. The paperwork is just a detail and can be altered at any time to suit. They are on a try-before-we-buy deal, and those that are most suited to the English game will be awarded contracts (as has happened with Forestieri). Surely this has to be a better way forward than plunging the club into unsustainable debt?

[john ridley]

I tried to clear this up on another thread - Thank you for your concern, but we really won't have a problem next season regardless of which division we end up in, as a) we're not under a transfer ban, we just have to ok any dealings with the FA to ensure they are above board, as sadly our previous owner wasn't, and has since been banned from football, and b) the players are actually just as much ours as they are Udinese's or Granada's, since we all draw from the same pool of players, scouted from all over the world, and for reasonable fees. The paperwork is just a detail and can be altered at any time to suit. They are on a try-before-we-buy deal, and those that are most suited to the English game will be awarded contracts (as has happened with Forestieri). Surely this has to be a better way forward than plunging the club into unsustainable debt?

fair point ,but still not right

[RedHux]

Surely the issue lies with the authorities rather then the club. I doubt any Leicester or Forest fan would care two shits if we got up via similar unethical practices.

 

 Anyway, aren't the rules being changed for next year? 

[Watford1982]

fair point ,but still not right.

What really is the difference between these two scenarios.

1 A club has a pool of players put at it's disposal by an Italian businessman that other teams don't have access to.

2 A club has a shed load of money for players put at it's disposal by a Thai businessman that other teams don't have access to.

 

As far as I can see, it's the nationality of the businessmen. Clubs that don't have the kind of backing that both Leicester and Watford enjoy might well have cause to be envious, even bitter - but why are we accused of cheating and you aren't?

[Guest Bilo]

Teams buying players is nothing new. Teams with wealthy owners is nothing new.

 

What is new is a flagrant abuse of the loan system.

 

Loans are there to give young players the opportunity of first team experience in a different setting as part of their education, to cover for injuries without teams having to make permanent signings they don't need to make and for teams that can't afford players permanently to have a player to 'fill a gap' for a period of time. 

 

In short, the loan system is there for clubs to sensibly patch up their squads and fill gaps as and where needed, giving players on the fringes of bigger clubs or clubs at a higher level the chance of first team football. It is not there for a team to exploit loopholes by bringing a near Premiership standard team in free of charge as a quick fix. 

 

The fact that you're part of an international franchise of clubs makes it unethical. Could Leicester get these players? Could Forest? Could Palace? Of course not. This is why multi-club ownership is banned in England, it prevents teams from gaining an unfair advantage by simply loaning players across the franchise to get ahead. 

 

I'm glad the rules are changing next year, it sets an unethical and worrying precedent.

[ADK]

Tbh i felt we did the same thing in Svens first season although it didn't work for us and wasn't on the same scale.

 

I think it's quite clever what the Watford owners have done, i'm surprised more teams havn't done it in the past.

 

Imagine if say Real Madrid decided to buy Bournemouth next season, they send over a few fringe players and some of their young prospects and they'd probably stroll the league. Then they can tuck in to a juicy £120 million or so tv money that it took them very little expense to get.

[harrowhorn]

The rules are not 'being changed next season'. Apart from Holloway gobbing off, and that **** Jabba the hutt lookalike Martin Samuels in the Mail, nobody is really that bothered. Any changes have to be voted for by the FL chairmen. Why would they vote to outlaw something that might give them an option to run a club successfully without having to pump in millions and millions from their own pockets? More likely they are watching Watford's progress and thinking 'how can we do this'.

 

I have copied a post from the Watford forum that pretty much sums up why it is actually a very good system (although as has often been said, if it were not Watford doing it as a fan I would be annoyed)

 

I'm an Italian Udinese's fan, now Watford fan too.
First thing, believe me, Pozzo is obviously a rich man but certainly not a super-rich. Not an oil-tycoon, or a sheik, of FIAT's owner, of Berlusconi (just to name some "really" rich team owners).

"Small" teams have a hard life in a football world dominated by giants and super-rich owners. They survive usually as yo-yo teams between divisions and with the occasional gain when they discover a good player and sell him for big money to the great ones.
Udine is a small city and has neither super-rich owners, nor millions of fans, nor a fair share of TV rights (in Italy they're not distributed in a strictly meritocratic way as in England), yet since Pozzo became its owner 26 years ago, after a few more yo-yo seasons between serie A and B, we are now in our 18th consecutive year in serie A, with 10 participations to European cups.
Believe me, this is quite a miracle.
And this was because Pozzo applied professionally the basics of management: "buy low, pay low mainteinance, sell high". He set up in the years a renowned scouting network that made the process of "1) discover a good inexpensive player 2) have some good saesons with him 3) sell him for good gain to the great teams" a habit, rather than the occasional touch of luck.

But such a good scouting network is expensive, as I wrote in my previous post. And is not used at full efficiency if it serves one team. What if a scout (highly paid) discovers a wonderful 17YO argentinian winger before any big team, but Udinese plays 3-5-1-1 so he would be wasted. Pity! We saw the raw gem first but we have to leave it for others to discover.
Thus the idea (touch of genius IMHO) by Gino Pozzo to have more teams.

Yet each team is independent, please don't say stupid things about "individual clubs are tossed around, used and discarded on a whim" because that's very far from reality.
And also players ARE respected. Simply they have more options.
Two examples:
- This summer many players who had little playing time at Udine and risked to mostly stay on bench or be given on loan to some serie B team were asked if they wanted to go to Watford. Most accepted, but Angella refused, preferring to risk his chances at Udine. No one is "moved around" just like a package.
- Torje, who seemed promising for Udinese, did not impress last year. Too phisically frail for serie A. He was loaned to Granada because he's probably much more apt for Liga playing style and there he's doing very good.

You see it like "the super rich playing Monopoly with players and teams" but I see it as a sort of "confederation of teams".

In a world ruled by giants, dwarves may survive and prosper only if they cooperate.

[Watford1982]

Teams buying players is nothing new. Teams with wealthy owners is nothing new.

What is new is a flagrant abuse of the loan system.

Let  me get this straight. Your objection to what we're doing is that it's a new approach, whereas what you're doing has been done for years? Does that make your way ok? 

 

Loans are there to give young players the opportunity of first team experience in a different setting as part of their education, to cover for injuries without teams having to make permanent signings they don't need to make and for teams that can't afford players permanently to have a player to 'fill a gap' for a period of time. 

In order to compete effectively against teams with huge amounts of money being ploughed into them (like Leicester), we had to plug lots of gaps in our team. In doing so, we gave lots of youngsters the opportunity to experience English football.

 

In short, the loan system is there for clubs to sensibly patch up their squads and fill gaps as and where needed, giving players on the fringes of bigger clubs or clubs at a higher level the chance of first team football. It is not there for a team to exploit loopholes by bringing a near Premiership standard team in free of charge as a quick fix

It's also there to allow teams to have a good look at individual players they intend to buy if they perform well, instead of splashing out gazillions on a dud and bringing the club to its knees  - which is what we're doing.

 

 The fact that you're part of an international franchise of clubs makes it unethical. Could Leicester get these players? Could Forest? Could Palace? Of course not. This is why multi-club ownership is banned in England, it prevents teams from gaining an unfair advantage by simply loaning players across the franchise to get ahead. 

Could Peterborough, Barnsley or Watford afford Nugent's or Schmeical's wages? I even wonder if Leicester can. You having a rich sugar daddy is equally unfair/unethical, which is why the fair play system is being brought in.

 

I'm glad the rules are changing next year, it sets an unethical and worrying precedent.

This will have no impact upon us, as their registrations will simply be changed to Watford. As explained before, these are Udinese players only in name - they are a shared resource.

 

I'm not for a minute pretending that what we're doing isn't giving an unfair advantage over poorer teams, but I have to laugh when bankrolled clubs such as yours kick off about it.

 

 

[Danizen]

Watford should be under an actual transfer embargo. They cheated. I find it difficult to believe nobody at the club knew about the LNOC deal (were the accountants on gardening leave, during this?). This is gonna sound like sour grapes but I thought this even before our semis. Brighton need to be promoted for the good of the game.

[ADK]

I can't think there'll be a single non-Watford fan anywhere in the country who dosn't want Brighton to win the final (well maybe Palace).

[Watford1982]

Watford should be under an actual transfer embargo. They cheated. I find it difficult to believe nobody at the club knew about the LNOC deal (were the accountants on gardening leave, during this?). This is gonna sound like sour grapes but I thought this even before our semis. Brighton need to be promoted for the good of the game.

What happened was never intended to benefit WFC and the owner was proven to have acted entirely alone - which is why the sanctions were placed on him, not the club.  The so called embargo is there to protect WFC from being similarly exploited in the near future (not that this will ever happen under the present regime), and doesn't prevent us from trading.

[Watford1982]

I can't think there'll be a single non-Watford fan anywhere in the country who dosn't want Brighton to win the final (well maybe Palace).

As a football fan first and foremost, I take a glance at other club's forums from time to time, and get quite a balanced view of things as a result. There seems to be pretty much an even spread of who people want to win, whereas it's pretty unanimous that Leicester deserved to lose yesterday because of the blatant dive. And before you shoot the messenger - check any other forum at random for yourself.

[howlinmadmurfdoc]

As a football fan first and foremost, I take a glance at other club's forums from time to time, and get quite a balanced view of things as a result. There seems to be pretty much an even spread of who people want to win, whereas it's pretty unanimous that Leicester deserved to lose yesterday because of the blatant dive. And before you shoot the messenger - check any other forum at random for yourself.

Maybe if we'd got the pen for your blatant hand ball in the first half we wouldn't have needed Knocky to dive to win one!

[Bert]

A dive is when there is no contact. Have a look again yourself, you'll see that there was clearly contact, so to say it's a dive is harsh.

Not being bitter, but I really hope Watford don't go up. Not because of the loan system, but because of 95% of their fans.

They've been an average to lower championship side for a few years and after one good season most of the fans seem to think they're gonna take Barcelona on. Never have I seen so much arrogance from such a small club.

All the best in the playoffs, but I for one will be hoping you don't make it.

[Watford1982]

Maybe if we'd got the pen for your blatant hand ball in the first half we wouldn't have needed Knocky to dive to win one!

I can kind of see your point, but I'm at a disadvantage really, as I missed the early stages of the game and haven't had the benefit of watching the repeat (sorry to get all Wenger on you!) - but other WFC fans assure me it wasn't at all deliberate, and knowing the player involved I'm inclined to believe them. If it had been Forestieri, I'd have been more sceptical as he's got previous - although a few red cards early on in the season seem to have straightened him out a bit. 

I did see the 'penalty' though, and the dive was disgraceful. That said, it's nothing that we haven't been guilty of this season, and I've been openly critical of our players when they've done it. I can't really see the difference between diving and doping - they're both cheating and designed to get an unfair advantage over your opponent.

[Watford1982]

A dive is when there is no contact. Have a look again yourself, you'll see that there was clearly contact, so to say it's a dive is harsh.

 

A dive is when you throw yourself to the floor looking for an advantage - which is what he did. There is no way on earth that the minimal contact involved would have caused such a dramatic tumble. And I hate this idea of all contact being punished. Is football a non-contact sport now? Time to watch something else if that's the case...

[Watford1982]

Not being bitter, but I really hope Watford don't go up. Not because of the loan system, but because of 95% of their fans.

They've been an average to lower championship side for a few years and after one good season most of the fans seem to think they're gonna take Barcelona on. Never have I seen so much arrogance from such a small club.

 

 What you've got to realize is that since the mid 70's we've been the underdogs, punching above our weight and having to adopt a brand of hoofball that whilst effective has been horrible to watch. Suddenly we're playing some delightful football (on the deck!!!) with some cracking players scoring wonder goals for fun. You can perhaps understand us getting carried away!

[Bert]

Hahaha, what you've got to realize is that since the mid 70's we've been the underdogs, punching above our weight and having to adopt a brand of hoofball that whilst effective has been horrible to watch. Suddenly we're playing some delightful football (on the deck!!!) with some cracking players scoring wonder goals for fun. You can perhaps understand us getting carried away!

Maybe so, but show some dignity at least, it's not hard.

[yorkie1999]

What really is the difference between these two scenarios.

1 A club has a pool of players put at it's disposal by an Italian businessman that other teams don't have access to.

2 A club has a shed load of money for players put at it's disposal by a Thai businessman that other teams don't have access to.

 

As far as I can see, it's the nationality of the businessmen. Clubs that don't have the kind of backing that both Leicester and Watford enjoy might well have cause to be envious, even bitter - but why are we accused of cheating and you aren't?

 

Its obvious really isn't it. There's no financial risk