Midfielder Pape Gueye has explained what happened at Watford and how he ended up locked in a legal battle with them.
Foot Mercato cover a story on him today on their account on X after he appeared on the Oui Hustle podcast to discuss his career to date.
Gueye currently plays for Villarreal in Spain after joining them on a free transfer from Marseille last year following spells at Le Havre and Sevilla as well.
Now, Watford should be included on that list as well but are not after the player never made an appearance for the Championship club after a long and lengthy legal dispute.
You see back in April 2020 it was announced that the midfielder had joined the Hornets and signed a pre-contract agreement with them. This was all announced by the club and he was even photographed with the shirt.
24 hours later, though, the midfielder was joining Marseille, claiming he had not signed a valid contract with Watford and been scammed by an agent.
This led to a big case at the Court of Arbitration for Sport, with Watford eventually winning and earning compensation of £2,307,875. Marseille were also banned from two transfer windows and Gueye received a four-month playing ban.
It was a confusing affair, to say the least, and now Foot Mercato provide the details from the man himself on what went down.
He explains that when he was coming to the end of his deal with Le Havre, he wanted to stay in France. “I didn’t speak English, Spanish or Italian. For me, the next logical step was to stay in France,” he said.
His agent, though, assured him that Watford were the only serious offer on the table and that their coach wanted him. He insisted integration would be easy even without English.
When it came to signing his contract, Gueye was alone, without his father who acted as an advisor. He trusted the agent and did not have the contract checked over.
Shortly afterwards his father had the contract checked and ‘everything fell apart’ as the terms were completely different from what was announced. They stated Gueye would be loaned out by Watford, there was no signing bonus and a decreasing salary.
Every worse, the agent had taken a €1m bonus without informing Gueye. “I was shocked…It destroyed me”. The family they tried to terminate the contract amicably, but Watford refused.
That led to him going to Marseille and the eventual case with CAS, in which the player was punished despite being a victim himself.
