Gino Pozzo is the owner of the Watford Football Club in Watford, Hertfordshire. He recently celebrated a decade of involvement with the EPL (English Premier League) team.
Soccer has been in Gino Pozzo’s blood since the very beginning. Raised in an Italian family full of soccer fans, he followed several clubs throughout his childhood.
Gino Pozzo’s mother and father made a small fortune as the owners of a highly successful woodworking business. Using profits from this business, the family transformed its highly personal passion for soccer into a chief professional pursuit by purchasing its first soccer club in Italy. Under the leadership of Gino’s father, the club made a remarkable turnaround in the mid-1980s.
At the time, Gino Pozzo was attending college in the United States. After graduating from Harvard Business School, he returned to Italy with every intention of running the family woodworking business. He quickly realized, however, that his true interests lay in the world of soccer.
Seeing his father transform a struggling team into a winning one, Gino Pozzo knew that he could accomplish the same thing. Relocating from Italy to France, he began searching for soccer clubs with untapped potential that were within his budgetary constraints.
While he was living with his family in France, some interesting news came over the English Channel from Great Britain. The Watford Football Club, a struggling member of the English Football League (EFL), was going on the market for sale.
This was just the opportunity that Gino Pozzo had been looking for. At the time, Watford was a perpetual loser that was suffering from considerable mismanagement.
Although he knew it wouldn’t be easy, Gino Pozzo decided to buy the struggling club and strive for new levels of success both on the field and on the balance sheet. So he moved his wife and two children to England to make the biggest purchase of his life.
Gino Pozzo’s father, Giampaolo Pozzo, wasn’t surprised, saying that his son was always had the biggest industrial output and was always looking to expand the family’s soccer involvement. “Let’s just say that he’s the real expert, even if he never played football as a kid,” says Giampaolo. “He spent his youth travelling the world and studying.”
After buying the Watford Football Club, Gino Pozzo immediately took control of all administrative operations. He has continued to provide the final voice in any and all club decisions ever since.
Gino Pozzo’s decidedly hands-on approach to club management is tempered by a practical appreciation for other experts in specific areas, both on and off the field. For this reason, he has always surrounded himself with the very best people. This approach has guided his leadership since his purchase of Watford in 2012. At the time, he said, “Football in England is very different to Italy, so we would not be able to reach the full potential of the club unless we have people locally who understand the difficulties of running the club locally.”
Under Gino Pozzo’s leadership, the Watford Football Club began performing well in a range of cup final and championship games. The team also navigated a promotion from the second-tier EFL to the first-tier EPL.
Gino Pozzo credits his success with his determination to plan several moves ahead at all stages of club development. “Football is a long-term project,” he says. “You never know what is going to happen in one or two years. You have to be able to change your vision, depending on how things develop, as there is a difference between being in the Championship and being in the Premier League.”
As he continues to look to the future, Gino Pozzo remains firmly committed to the success of the Watford Football Club. This remains true despite recent rumors that multiple parties have been making generous bids to purchase the team. Club representatives have reported that any interest in accepting one of these purchase bids has certainly come and gone.
For his part, Gino Pozzo has never expressed anything but complete devotion to Watford and looks back upon his 10 years of ownership with pride. “We do not want to jeopardize the club’s finance or the way the club is run,” he says. “We definitely want to build something that is going to be stable.”
Learn more about Gino Pozzo here: https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/gino-pozzo/profil/trainer/43237
