Pozzo Gamble Feeds the Family

Pozzo Gamble Feeds the Family
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So it was, on a sunny Saturday in Brighton, that Watford clinched promotion back to the 'Promised Land'. With late Rotherham and Fulham goals meaning an insurmountable gap was in place between third and first, the Watford team learned of their promotion whilst on the coach returning to the training ground after the 2-0 victory at the Amex.

At the start of this campaign, we knew that the club was better placed than in previous seasons to challenge for promotion. A summer of relative calm saw a few new faces join the club. Some were English and had Championship experience; the kind of attributes we desperately needed. Those same players would ultimately see the season out on loan at other clubs in the division.

It is estimated that Watford will gain between £100 - 150million for their achievement. It's the sort of eye-watering figure that makes the latest TV deal so incomprehensible to the majority of supporters. For a club who had only a few years earlier been on the brink of going out of business, this turn around has been remarkable.

That money though will not be put solely into transfer coffers primed and ready for Premier League wages.

A good proportion of that income will go directly back into strengthening Udinese and Granada, without whom, as the acceptance speech goes, all this would not be possible. These two clubs, smaller than many of their Serie A and La Liga counterparts, helped prop up Watford's tilt towards the top table of English football. It is only right, and just, that they reap the rewards too.

It is of course more beneficial for Watford to be in the Premier League, than it is for Granada to be in La Liga, based on TV revenues alone. It's been the Pozzo's plan all along to get us up in order to help the other members of the family. That it's been achieved in just three years is a testament to the investment and faith they placed in the supporters and players who've played a part in the club's new found success.

I, like many other Watford supporters, was sceptical initially. But, gestures such as naming stands after club legends, continuing with local community initiatives and the transparency with which they conduct their business endeared them to the Watford faithful.

They are football owners who understand the business of football. The know that a club is intrinsically linked to it's supporters who are should not be relied on to aimlessly hand over their cash week in week out to see over-paid prima donnas struggle to draw sweat.

I may be a Watford fan alone, but watching Granada struggle at the bottom of La Liga, I feel guilty for the part we played in their poor season. After all, we pinched their main goalscorer - Odion Ighalo just happened to score 20 goals this year in a Watford shirt. It's our turn to repay them.