Spanish

6 minutes ago, Stive Pesley said:

If that's true - then why? None of these points deductions punish MM and SP - they both just walk away from the smoking wreckage

It only punishes the fans. That's what really stinks.

 

how else could it work, owner arrives, breaches rules, club does not get promoted, walks away with no punishment for club, repeat until success occurs.

Awful though, but we thought he was one of our own and wouldn't abandon us in this mess

4 minutes ago, Ted McMinn Football Genius said:

I received this only a few moments ago, as I am sure most of you have too. Thought I would post it in here for those fellow Rams that haven’t seen this. 
If true this is a truly horrific position we find ourselves in ??
 

Please note these are not my opinions, just forwarding it on  

 

Sheep Dip Update: (Please note the comments are my opinion based on information that I have been receiving since 2019 and dictate a series of events that have been divulged to me. Despite the accuracies, I have made sum assumptions on the alleged intentions of the actions and these will likely differ from the actual events) 
You may have to re-read my old posts about the position Derby was in and I am sure Wayne can bring them back up if you wish to read back?
Generally though, there is no point on going on what has been said as it is all now out and with Mel’s interview today finally admitting that they are in Breach of FFP for all of the years the accounts haven’t been submitted properly, which covers the 3 years accounts 2015 – 2018/ 2018-2019 & 2019-2020. This would indicate 3 separate FFP punishments, but I will touch on that a little later. 
My understanding is that over the recent months after the results of the arbitration panel Derby were given a deadline to produce their accounts in the same fashion that is expected of them and other clubs. 
Not only did Derby not do this, but they also allegedly resubmitted accounts that were formed on a different form of amortisation, which as like the previous examples – they simply could not explain. The EFL provided a final extension of 7 days for them to supply the acceptable accounts or face a points penalty. 
The EFL went back to the arbitration panel and were told that if this was not complied with, they could have the points penalty they originally demanded through the hearing. I am guessing Derby were notified of this around the same time. As a result of this, all of the previous delaying tactics and alleged deliberate moves to push the can down the road (so to speak) were no longer possible and the EFL patience would finally be realised. 
I have said for a while Administration was on the cards, however, I have been told that how the debt is structured with the club, it is unlikely administration will have much impact. I have also had the benefit to see higher level financials provided by a party involved in the potential takeover through an NDA and it isn’t pretty. 
In respect of the club moving forward this is what I understand as now. 
Penalty Points Being Faced:. 
• 9 Points for Deliberate financial breaches. (Could now be 12 as administrators will now have to negotiate. 
• 3 Points (Suspended from panel) for late payment of wages. 
• 12 Points for administration. 
• 15 Points for Creditors Penalty not paying 25% of footballing debts. 
• 12 Points for breach of FFP for years 2015 – 2018 3 years accounts based on the correct amortisation.
• 9 Points for persistent breaches for 2018 – 2019 Accounts
• 9 Points for persistent breaches for 2019 – 2020 Accounts.
The EFL want to implement the absolute maximum on Derby, not because of a vendetta, but due to the alleged actions of Morris and Pearce whom I was told, pretty much used every trick in the book to avoid/delay/frustrate the EFL throughout this whole saga. 
It appeared they continued with this ritual of trying to re-write the rules to suit their overspending in order to avoid the inevitable punishments in expectation that promotion would mean they could have got away with a fine. (QPR, Bournemouth, Villa to name a few who have cheated and got away with it) FFP was brought in to stop exactly what they both were doing to Derby.
There are many comments from Derby fans claiming the club can take the EFL to court. This is not possible. The EFL are the jurisdiction on the rules of the football league, the courts have no jurisdiction. The accounts may well have been compliant legally for companies law, but this has no bearing on the rules of the football league. Clubs agree to compliance to the rules, it is in their articles of association.
What Next?
Morris and Derby have pretty much burnt their bridges at Derby and the announcement blaming the EFL for administration didn’t go down too well. Despite the administration I would expect the EFL to make an example of them and I expect the club will see a series of points deducted over the next two seasons (as reported in the Star) to have the maximum effect. IF the club is still here. 
Derby are now a club whom don’t own their stadium – MSD whom had the loan charge on it will have taken ownership of the company. There is a charge on the training ground also and the ownership of that will revert to the lenders. It would be my expectation that lenders will want to dispose of ASAP and will not care to whom or for what. This leaves a football club with a barebones staff, no training ground and no stadium of ownership and with guaranteed League 1 football next season with a possibility of League 2 the season after. It is going to need a miracle or a seriously generous benefactor to survive. 
My own opinion on Mel Morris – I think he is an abhorrent character, whom dodged the stadium valuation by trying to justify what other clubs are doing. He refuses to take responsibility for the way he ran Derby and continues to this day to mention Forest in order to deflect the goings on at Derby. He says this because he thinks their fans are stupid and it will garner support. M&P have run the club to the point of oblivion and have been constantly telling fans what they think they want to hear, rather than the actual goings on. Derby do have the potential to survive, the club has a healthy income driven by the enthusiastic and loyal fanbase it maybe that it rises through another phoenix club or the administrators work absolute wonders with the current debts. Although upon reading Nixon’s tweet about the administrators, that sounds like that comes from the PR Spin of M&P again….

I don't know how he has come up with the breaches based on the interview, he only mentioned £4m breach in a single year.  The stadium sale would have covered 3 of the 3 year cycles I think

1 minute ago, Dean (hick) Saunders said:

Sorry. Does this mean we might not end up in admin then? (Seems unlikely from the MM interview etc)

it is possible but I expected there would be more discussion on the intent and when there wasn't I was much more worried.  The interview took place in an environment where admin seemed a forgone conclusion

On 18/09/2021 at 20:56, RoyMac5 said:

Swindon didn't when they got new owners. But of course they didn't have Gibson haunting the EFL and demanding our blood.

what was this for, I know they have just incurred a 3 point suspended for non payment of salaries but can't see anyhting else

Just now, jono said:

That’s my faint hope. Feels unlikely given the shortage of cash everywhere but it could be the difference between league 1 and league 2 and take a year or two off our suffering and torture. Guess we will find out !

Jono, the rich have still lots of dosh in fact many have prospered in these difficult time.  I am not so worried by this more how to navigate around the corrupt sharks and find somebody of a standard that the EFL will approve.  I fear they will have great doubts around anyone who is attracted to buy, we do have form in this area.  I guess the L2 issue depends much on whether we get all of our penalties this year.  As someone said, losing to Wendy would see i=us in exactly the same position but now facing relegation to L2

to attempt an answer to the question.

Showing an intent to enter admin gives protection from creditors for 2 weeks or so.  During that time it is in the best interest of a buyer to try and get a deal done because it is the only thing that can be done to avoid a 12 point penalty.  You've still got all the P&S to face but they have been prompted to move quickly rather than wait for what they may perceive as the best time

1 hour ago, G STAR RAM said:

Our experience now, with the benefit of hindsight, is that we lost a lot of money on average players.

When we signed them, would you have predicted that Johnson, Butterfield, Wisdom would all leave for £0?

That is where accounting estimate come into play.

Not sure what you see as reckless? The hit to P&S was exactly the same no matter which method was used and I've seen nothing to suggest all of the losses were pitched into the final year, have you?

when during the life of their contracts did any of us stop believing they were worth what we paid for them, I'd guess between y2 and y3.  I cant speak for everyone but I would like to here from anybody who thought we were going to get any sort of return on Butterfield for example.

Final year, I think there is an example in DC1 but I may be wrong.  I am not engaging in bs passive aggressive debating here.  I am expressing an opinion and I freely admit where I am spinning it a bit.  We rapidly realised we paid over the odds, the only way to avoid a P&S penalty in one of our close but no cigar seasons was to some how limit the annual hit.  You may not think we carried pretty much the players full valuation to y4 (in a 5 year contract) but I suspect that is what we did.  Why come up with a hybrid scheme if it provides no benefit.

9 hours ago, Ramtastic ones said:

I'll now to your greater knowledge. EFL rule or accountancy rule. If the latter, with regards tangible assets which players and shares are (I think) then how can the EFL apply a rule that doesn't apply in every other business model.

well players are intangible assets I think

8 hours ago, G STAR RAM said:

You will have noted that he said a model of 25,000 player sales showed the straight line amortisation was not appropriate.

He bought the stadium in 2018, not during Covid 

I dont think he ever indicated this, just that the players wages would be covered by insurance 

Nothing to stop you making a loan to the club either was there?

See above comment. My gripe was always over the valuation given to individual players but I believe the model is more suitable than straight line and is fully compliant with FRS is applied correctly, something that our auditors concluded we had done.

There must have been records available for the auditors.

Where do you have this information from?

What is our actual experience of player values throughout their contracts?  Dont care about 25000 others.  It was reckless to pitch all the PS losses into the final year

I don’t know about the stadium repayments because we haven’t seen accounts, I am just stating a possibility and you know that.

3 minutes ago, BramcoteRam84 said:

I listened to the interview. I think Ed did an ok job, easy for us to stand back and say he didn’t ask that or he didn’t ask this. Not all the questions we wanted answering were answered but they were never going to be. 

Mel made some extremely valid points. The football financial model is broken. It isn’t a level playing field. Only 2 non-parachute payment clubs have secured promotion without breaking P&S. Parachute payment clubs are insulated to Covid, clubs recently promoted have a cost base that can cope and will make equal/more revenue from additional TV money that balances out loss of gate revenues, the non parachute funded clubs with bigger attendances who have been showing ambition and pushing the boundaries of P&S just to try and compete with the parachute funded clubs were always going to be hit harder by Covid. Without Covid we wouldn’t be going into administration. All those points cannot be argued. We were starting to cut our cloth accordingly with Cocu but then Covid pulled the rug out from under us. It can’t be denied it’s a fact.

His comments about the inconsistencies and punitive nature of the EFL were also interesting. The defence of our amortisation policy was fierce and in my opinion completely valid. Its a disgrace we’re in the dock over this - anyone who says otherwise is swallowing the guff that the EFL are clubs pushing them on this are leaking out to the national press to build this ridiculous idea we are cheats.  The EFL are not fit for purpose and an independent regulator is required.

Mel even admitted he gambled and failed but that’s the only way to compete season after season against parachute funded clubs, that is no different to other owners of clubs who avoided P&S issues through being fortunate enough to be promoted.

But the interview didn’t cover/push the fact he gambled but wouldn’t stand behind his debts and plunged us into administration up to the eyeballs in debt (unless we’re taking from today he no longer has the means), glossed over his mismanagement in particular wages, joiners gate etc.
 

He also seems to think administration will be the miracle cure that gets us a new buyer to take us forward, with £60m debt majority of which won’t be wiped through the process and will need servicing at some point. Until we get a buyer, who will be funding the £1-£1.5m Mel has been funding up to now, how will we pay players? Will it just be more points deductions for not paying players or could it be worse, at what point will the club be forced to liquidate and how quickly could that arise - could it be before Jan as we can’t sell any players until then, so will we need to sell moor farm to get us through (given Mel still has PP for the moment although he has said he will offer that up to the new buyer as part of this deal). None of these questions have been answered and frankly I’m not bothered about all the other points he made, it’s already done, cannot change it, I want to know how this club can survive until January now he has taken this decision to put us in administration and threaten the club’s existence.

Im pleased he did the interview, I think he tried his best I think he cares about the club but he will always be remembered as the owner who nearly killed the club, let’s hope he’s not remembered and the owner who killed it.

Imo our amortisation policy was due solely to kicking the can down the road in the hope we could get promoted and avoid penalties

41 minutes ago, DCFC1388 said:

Seems to me like Mel put us on the road to administration the moment he only wanted new owners to pay the debts off, which is pretty much what fans were asking him to do in terms of selling for a £1, he was getting £0 from the deal itself.

New owners are always going to want us to go into admin and have less debts to pay if that is all they were going to pay for anyway, so it makes sense what Mel says where he expects previous interested parties to come back in.

Yes we are likely to go down now but most thought that anyway this year & majority of last year, so the new owners would probably think the same so they will know we are down but with less overall debt to pay.

No new owner would welcome -12 plus an embargo

26 minutes ago, Ramtastic ones said:

So if a company buys an asset and it increases in value, they can't reflect that in their accounts? If that is correct every set of accounts that includes share values is totally ducked.

 

In terms of player value you can only depreciate 

1 hour ago, Ramtastic ones said:

Probably and I say that with the acceptance that I may be wrong. In reality teams buy player who perform to the expected level an in this scenario the model of exponential depreciation works. If a player under performs then the straight line model applies - unless the club decided to off load, then the negative exponential would apply. If a player over performs then his asset value would increase. Accordingly, no fixed model is correct and logically the method of amortisation applied, should reflect the individual asset. For example Bogle's asset value increased, jozefoons decreased - why treat them the same?

You can’t increase the value

2 hours ago, G STAR RAM said:

Incorrect.

The stadium was purchased in 2018.

He owes cash for the purchase, the funds he has put in since then could be itemised as loan repayments, why is that incorrect?

15 minutes ago, Ramtastic ones said:

What Derby did was adopt a method that reflected the reality of football. Ronaldo for £13m, Bogle and Lowe for £7m. There is the reality. What do you think is better value? All will be worth nothing as an asset when their contracts expire.

You think our model reflected reality?  Really you do?

47 minutes ago, ram59 said:

Yes, it is correct what he said about player values dropping mainly in the last year of their contract and I don't see that it is illegal to do the amortisation in this way. Derby used this method in the belief that when the final year of these players' contracts were due, we would be in the premier league and then it wouldn't matter,  one of a number of gambles which didn't pay off. 

He also tried to justify Lampard's team's wages by saying that Rowett's compensation nearly covered their first season costs, but they were on 3 year contracts, how would we have covered the other 2 years?

Ultimately, he is responsible for what has happened to the club, he has taken gambles which haven't paid off. He and Derby have been unlucky on a number of occasions over the years with a number of events contributing to the current situation. Who knows, had Zamora not scored that goal, Hughes and Bryson got injured, Newcastle, Stoke and Chelsea not sacked their managers, EFL deciding our amortisation policy was wrong years later, EFL questioning the value of the ground, Lampard picking a different team against villa and finally the big one covid, we may have got away with it.

He probably thought that as it was his money, he was entitled to take the gamble. But unfortunately it isn't that simple and the reputation and status of the club are now in question.

Didn’t say it was illegal I have long held the view that it was poor corporate governance and expressed that many times here.  He pushed the envelope until it burst

1 minute ago, CornwallRam said:

They might be, depending where Mel is getting his information from.

If he's going from the accounts, the P&Ls will include them and show losses at a greater level than the P&S outcome.

However, if Mel is getting his information directly about P&S (is this actually published anywhere? Although owners may well get extra info anyway) then they aren't included.

P&S comes from the annual summary provided to EFL, we don't get to see it.  Even when you eventually see the accounts it can be difficult to analyse because it may straddle a number of different companies.

2 minutes ago, G STAR RAM said:

Id be surprised if we ran up in excess of £20m debt pre Covid.

in covid he bought the stadium and may have used the debt to counter the funding.  We don't know because the accounts have been ate by his dog

1 minute ago, Norman said:

I'm sure Mel read this message board before singing the likes of Bradley Johnson. 

I mean, it's not like he has stated himself that we learned he was available at the very last minute on transfer deadline day and just went for it. No plan, no process. 

Must have been all the pesky people on here demanding it. 

i loved what he said about amortisation, did the work and established that most players do not lose their value in a straightline basis.  We bought senior players and our experience under his tenure is their value depreciated in a vertical straight line.  Businesses should use amortisation based on their corporate knowledge and experience.  What we chose was something that would crucify us in the last year of contracts because to do it any other way would have breached P&S

3 minutes ago, G STAR RAM said:

It did say it in the club statement.

Sort of doesnt make sense that if a club is in financial trouble that the EFL would not loan them money to get out of financial trouble. 

Sums the EFL up quite well actually. 

He mentioned the wendy suspended points so surely he would have mentioned this???  The loan is to pay HMRC I think, did our debt to HMRC predate covid?  clutching at straws now so better shut up 

8 minutes ago, Carl Sagan said:

Also for (b), given administrators can't sell for the first 28 days anyway, they've effectively got to be able to find funds to pay at least two months worth of wages. And the wage bill is the biggest cost to the club by far. If incomings aren't sufficient and there's nothing for the administrators to liquidate, do players become free agents? And does the suspended 3 point penalty (for previously not paying wages on time) automatically get activated?

And does paying "football debts" in full mean we can no longer pay ongoing transfer fees (eg Bielik, Jozwiak) in instalments but have to pay the full whack? 

I don't know the answer to any of these questions, but wonder if others might.

I fear there is nothing in the rules for this and the EFL will be forced to enforce the penalty.  If admin does not protect us form EFL rules I don't think they will have a choice

Just now, jono said:

And most of us were egging him on all the way

are you Charlotteram?

are you blaming the fans?

Just now, jono said:

It’s not about affection it’s about seeing things with accuracy rather than gut, in the moment emotion. We are all hurting but road rage isn’t constructive, logical or reflective of the whole story which is vastly complex. 

 But I can see it clearly and not a bit of rage in me.  I have held this view for a long time and received many insults because of it.  I have no idea why you wish to suggest anything other but you are well off beam.

1 minute ago, G STAR RAM said:

Will be interesting to see if we were the only club denied it.

GS he would have mentioned it if that was the case

57 minutes ago, sage said:

We have now got to hope that either a) a new buyer is found in the 2 weeks before we go into formal administration or at least b) a new buyer is in place before the January window, so it doesn't turn into a fire sale,  

he is gambling that admin will force buyers to make a real bid rather than hang on to see how things go.  Mel is not a good gambler