Hornets stung Watford fined £4m over forged bank letter
Club admits supplying forged financial details Scandal exposed after Telegraph investigation
Watford have been fined almost £4 million after admitting supplying falsified financial information to the football authorities.
The Premier League club have been punished for submitting a forged banking letter – the existence of which was exclusively revealed by The Daily Telegraph in October – when Gino Pozzo became their sole owner.
The faked filing, provided as proof that Pozzo had enough funds to bankroll Watford, allowed the Italian to take full control of the Hertfordshire club.
Fabricated to appear as though it was written by HSBC, one of the world’s largest banks, the letter was submitted to the Football League (now EFL) shortly before the club’s 2014-15 promotion-winning season.
A copy of the document was obtained by The Telegraph, which it passed on to HSBC and police after alerting the EFL, sparking an internal probe by Watford and a 10-month inquiry by the governing body. The club pleaded guilty to filing the letter and have been fined £3.95m – the largest ever EFL financial penalty – by a disciplinary commission and ordered to pay an additional £350,000 in costs.
The fine would have been even larger – £5.75million – but it was cut by £1.8 million in mitigation after Watford were deemed to have fully cooperated with an independent investigation and met their financial commitments in full.
Raffaele Riva, who resigned as executive chairman a week after The Telegraph revealed he had secured the faked letter, was last night facing separate disciplinary action from the EFL.
The inquiry found no evidence Pozzo had any knowledge a forgery had been obtained or submitted on his behalf, despite it allowing him to succeed his father, Giampaolo, as the club’s ultimate beneficial owner in the summer of 2014.
The fabricated document stated that the holding company which owns Watford, Hornets Investment Limited, had sufficient financial resources with the bank for it to issue “a cash-backed unsecured bank guarantee up to £7 million” during the 2014-15 season.
The letter was headed HSBC ‘Premier’, an arm of the bank that did not even deal with corporate customers, while a source told The Telegraph that Hornets Investment had never been a HSBC customer.
The faked document was one of two obtained by The Telegraph dated a week apart and worded almost identically.
Riva secured the letters from an associate, who, according to information received by The Telegraph, denied any intention for them to be used in any formal filing.
A week before resigning, Riva issued a statement in which he said he said he had no knowledge he had been provided with a forgery until informed by The Telegraph.
A Watford spokesman said last night: ‘‘Watford fully accepts the findings of the EFL and the sanction imposed. As soon as this matter was brought to the club’s attention, it reacted swiftly and openly in cooperating with the EFL’S investigation.
‘‘The club is pleased that throughout his independent inquiry, Ian Unsworth, QC, praised that level of access and co-operation and with it exonerated all current club employees. This was also accepted by the EFL.
‘‘No evidence was found of other irregularities in Watford’s submissions to the EFL. We will be making no further comment.’’