Current Watford owner Gino Pozzo is subject to an investigation for alleged financial crimes with the Spanish prosecutor’s office reportedly asking for a 12-year sentence.
The Italian businessman is reportedly under investigation for alleged financial crimes that he committed during his time as owner of the Spanish club, Granada.
The La Liga club were under the ownership of the Pozzo family between the years 2009 to 2015 with the investigation circulating around the transfer of players according to the Iberian newspaper, El Pais.
The report claims via Eurosport, that Pozzo along with Granada’s president at the time, Quique Pina, profited off the ‘illicit movement of money linked to player transfers,’ in a ‘large-scale criminal plan’.
According to the report, the prosecutor’s office claimed that ‘through the execution of a complex strategy, would have allowed the club to artificially transfer the earnings obtained through the transfer of professional footballers to Luxembourg and not to pay them in Spain, thus obtaining a significant economic profit at the expense of the Treasury”.
El Pais claims that four defendants are set for trial with the Spanish prosecutor’s office asking for Pozzo to receive a 36.5 million euro fine along with a 12-year prison sentence, a date has yet to be set.