Hornets owner Laurence Bassini sat down with the Watford Observer’s Frank Smith this week for an in-depth interview, where they addressed several of the club’s major issues.

Bassini provided an update on Watford’s current redevelopment projects and revealed he expects the Red Lion pub in Vicarage Road to re-open in “two or three weeks”.

The pub has been closed since 2006 when Watford bought the site, as the club’s previous regime had initially planned to build flats and offices before the idea was scrapped.

In September, Bassini said he had hoped the pub would be open by Christmas but it soon became evident that was extremely unlikely.

He explained: “The pub should have been done by Christmas but when we went there, people had broken into it and ripped all the floors out so we had to put new floors in. All the copper piping had been taken out and there were things that needed to be done with the roof.

“So it delayed things by several months because people had broken in and had squatted there.

“A tree had its roots growing into the building as well so it was in quite a state and that is why it has taken extra time.”

Bassini claimed the Red Lion redevelopment would cost around £500,000 and that the funding would come from his own “personal wealth”.

The Watford owner said he plans to spent considerable amounts on the stadium projects as well.

This summer the Vicarage Road pitch should be relaid, at a cost of £1m.

Bassini hopes to start re-building the South-West corner in four month’s time, although he expects it may be more than double that, and said it will cost around £2.8m. He also claimed he will be spending between £8m and £10m on a new East Stand.

Bassini said: “Once the pub is finished in the next few weeks, we should be ready to start the South-West corner. We have builders instructed to do it.

“The pitch has been ordered and the deposit has been paid and once we have done that, we have people ready to do the demolition work on the East Stand.

“We will start work on that once the South-West corner has been done. We hope to get the East Stand started later this year.”

Work on the South-West corner was halted due to the club’s lack of funds but Bassini has said he will be paying for the construction work to begin once the Red Lion is complete.

Plans for the building have changed on several occasions and Bassini is still unclear whether there will be more alterations.

He said: “You will have the media, restaurants, executive seating and the changing rooms. It will also have a gymnasium.

“We haven’t decided if there will be function rooms there yet.”

Bassini will not put a time frame on when the East Stand will be complete as it relies on not only when the South-West corner is done, but what they “find” when demolishing the derelict stand, which Bassini claims will take place once the pitch is laid.

The Watford owner said he is “hopeful” to start work on the new 5,000-seater development in four or five months though. For more on the East Stand, see Page 5.

It is unclear whether Watford will be the only side playing at Vicarage Road next season.

Saracens’ game against Worcester Warriors at the end of last month was their tenth match at Vicarage Road this season, which means the Hornets will now earn a set fee for every time the rugby club have a home game.

Sarries had initially hoped to be playing at their Barnet Copthall Stadium now but delays in the planning process mean they will remain at Vicarage Road for the remainder of this season, at least.

They are expected to play 15 home matches this season which means the Hornets will receive £100,000 more from the rugby club during the 2011/12 campaign compared to the £581,000 they were paid last year.

Watford also agreed a deal where they would receive more of the match-day revenue and Bassini has previously claimed the whole deal could be worth up to £900,000 over the course of the season.

Saracens’ bid to move to Copthall has been given the go-ahead by Barnet Council but they are now awaiting approval from the Mayor of London.

The Men in Black want to move to the Mill Hill site and develop the athletics stadium into a 10,000-seater venue. Copthall would be used for up to 16 rugby games each season but be available for the community during the rest of the year.

The Premiership champions are hoping to move to Copthall by the end of 2012, with the building of the stadium likely to take about six months.

This means it is almost certain that Saracens will need a temporary home until at least the turn of the year.

Bassini said there has been no contact between the two clubs regarding a possible extension but while he would not want the Premiership champions to remain at Vicarage Road, he did not rule out an extension.

He said: “The answer from me is no, I wouldn’t be open to them staying but it would be something I would have to talk about with the board.

“Saracens have been with us a long time, they have supported us and put money in which has helped the club in the past. It is something that they [the board] would have to look at.

“From my perspective, the answer is no, I wouldn’t want to do it again. We have a new pitch going in – although saying that, the new pitch lasts 15 to 20 years and is a Desso pitch which can take rugby.

“So the answer is, I would have to take advice on that.”

Bassini said he speaks to chairman Graham Taylor four or five times a week and claims he consults with the club legend on “everything”.

The Stanmore businessman also said he regularly speaks to the club’s bondholders, who are owed more than £9m between them.

He said: “I speak to Andrew Wilson [Lord Ashcroft’s representative] every few weeks and have lunch with him to discuss how things are going. He texts me and I email him. It is all fine.

“I speak to David Fransen during the week and let him know how things are going.

“I have spoken to Lord Ashcroft and it is fine but I speak to Wilson more,” he added.

Bassini claimed he has turned down offers of more than £10m for a minority stake in Watford, which raises the question of why he rejected such an offer?

“I didn’t come into this club for the money, I came to the club so it has a future and I believe this club has got a good future,” Bassini said.

“For example, everybody at the beginning was saying ‘we are going to get relegated because we have no manager and we have no players’ and in the meantime we are doing really well, we have stability – in that we know we will be safe this year – and there is ground work going on.”

Bassini stated that he continues to fund the club as it loses money on a monthly basis.

But despite this, he insists the club did not need to sell Marvin Sordell and claimed they were still unsure whether they wanted to allow the striker to leave going into the final day of the January transfer window.

Cardiff believed they had a £3m offer for Sordell accepted and then rejected less than an hour later but Bassini denies that was the case.

He said: “There was an offer from Cardiff but we were never going to sell to Cardiff. They could have offered an extra half-a-million pounds more and we wouldn’t have sold to them.”

The Watford Observer was informed Sordell and Adrian Mariappa had been offered to other clubs a week before the window was closed by a sports agency but Bassini was adamant the company were not working for the club.

“I can’t stop people coming to me offering to sell Marvin and I had all walks of life wanting to sell the player,” Bassini said.

“We might deal with them but if they are trying to sell our player, I can’t stop them trying to do that but I wasn’t involved with them.”

There were reports Watford had accepted a £1.75m bid for Adrian Mariappa from Wigan Athletic but the defender rejected the chance to meet with the Premier League club.

Bassini stated no offers for Mariappa had been accepted and said the reports in the national media had not come from Watford.

He said: “There were three or four teams looking at Mariappa and there were two clubs who made offers. There were four or five different offers from Newcastle and there were offers from Wigan.”

When asked whether the reports of Mariappa turning down Wigan were false, Bassini replied: “There was some agency that had nothing to do with us. No one was instructed by us. If they want to go and put things on Sky, then that is their business.”

At the end of the interview, Bassini was asked if there was anything else he wanted to add.

He replied: “I think we are in a much better position now. People have been worried and a lot of things have been said.

“Yes, I didn’t come to the fans’ forums and I genuinely wasn’t well but I think we have come a long way.

“We have work being done at the stadium and people can say what they want but it is being done. We have a new screen, a new PA system, new seating, new lighting for the pitch, new covering.

“The new pitch is going in this year, the pub is being sorted out, the South-West corner will be started soon, we will be building a new East Stand.

“We have a new team and a new manager and we are doing well in the league.

“We are making steady progress. Things can’t be done in a day. If people think they can do it in a day, please come over and show me because people have been having a go, shouting and screaming – it makes me think of the manager.

“Ten weeks ago everybody wanted the manager sacked and now he is the greatest thing. If I had listened to what people were saying ten weeks ago then what would have happened? We would have lost our manager and he is doing fine.

“You have to give people time. I think you have to give a season to sort themselves out," Bassini added.