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duncanjwitham

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  1. Like
    duncanjwitham got a reaction from Adslegend in Quantuma   
    Stuff like this is why people don’t like Maguire.  Skim reading that tweet makes it sound like Quantuma have been charged with wire fraud, when in fact it’s a “company makes profit” non-story.  I’m sure it’s deliberately worded that way as click-bait.
  2. Like
    duncanjwitham got a reaction from TF Ram in Quantuma   
    Stuff like this is why people don’t like Maguire.  Skim reading that tweet makes it sound like Quantuma have been charged with wire fraud, when in fact it’s a “company makes profit” non-story.  I’m sure it’s deliberately worded that way as click-bait.
  3. Clap
    duncanjwitham got a reaction from GB SPORTS in Quantuma   
    Stuff like this is why people don’t like Maguire.  Skim reading that tweet makes it sound like Quantuma have been charged with wire fraud, when in fact it’s a “company makes profit” non-story.  I’m sure it’s deliberately worded that way as click-bait.
  4. Clap
    duncanjwitham got a reaction from DerbyAleMan in Sonny Bradley   
    433:
    WIldsmith
    Nyambe Nelson Cashin Elder
    Bird Adams Hourihane
    NML Waghorn Barkhuizen
    Assuming Waghorn is fit enough to start at some point soon, as he's the only real focal point we have. Fozzy back in for Elder when he's fit.  Rotate the wingers with Wilson/Ward/CBT etc as per form/fitness.  The same with Sibley/Thomspon/Smith etc in the midfield 3.
  5. Clap
    duncanjwitham got a reaction from RoyMac5 in Sonny Bradley   
    433:
    WIldsmith
    Nyambe Nelson Cashin Elder
    Bird Adams Hourihane
    NML Waghorn Barkhuizen
    Assuming Waghorn is fit enough to start at some point soon, as he's the only real focal point we have. Fozzy back in for Elder when he's fit.  Rotate the wingers with Wilson/Ward/CBT etc as per form/fitness.  The same with Sibley/Thomspon/Smith etc in the midfield 3.
  6. Clap
    duncanjwitham got a reaction from Chester40 in Stephen Pearce on Radio Derby 6pm Tuesday   
    The entirety of the EFL's actions (as a governing body that is, not the league as a whole) only make sense through a lens of them just wanting their cushy little existence to go on, and not be bothered by anything.  They were quite happy to let us get on with doing whatever we wanted, until 'Boro and co started threatening them, so they felt they had to act.  They buried their head in the sand about 'Boro and co's actions during our admin and waited until Morris finally stepped in and sorted it out.  They're doing their best to ignore issues at other clubs like Reading.  They just want the world to leave them alone to their prawn sandwiches.
    I think if we'd won the appeal, they would have maybe let it go, as that was possibly a big enough stick to deter 'Boro.  They'd probably amend the rules to force straight-line amortization for everyone and stop stadium sales counting for FFP going forwards (which they did anyway on both counts).  But no retrospective changes for our accounts.
    But honestly, that first IDC report, particularly the bit about the stadium valuation, should have ended them as a governing body.  There should be no coming back from spending hundreds of thousands of pounds having a guy who'd never ever valued a football stadium (and had literally no clue how to go about it) redo a disputed valuation, and then construe an entire set of charges and tribunals off the back of it.  The clubs themselves should have kicked them out for the sheer abuse of power and waste of resources.
  7. Like
    duncanjwitham got a reaction from ariotofmyown in Stephen Pearce on Radio Derby 6pm Tuesday   
    Because they were made to look very, very stupid by the original decision.  They made a massive song and dance about how naughty we'd been, dragged us through the mud for years about it, and then when it came down to it, it turned out we were right all along.  They'd employed two experts who knew absolutely nothing about the subjects they were supposed to be experts on, and got called out for it in a big way.  Wasted years of people's time and who knows how much of the league clubs money.  After all their shouting, we basically ended up with a slap on the wrist for a very minor deficiency in our record keeping.  Of course they were going to appeal that.  And that's not to mention the pressure being put on them by 'Boro and co.
  8. Like
    duncanjwitham got a reaction from ariotofmyown in Stephen Pearce on Radio Derby 6pm Tuesday   
    I think if the stadium had been sold off to a 3rd party because we needed cash into the club quickly, then absolutely that should have set off alarm bells.  What actually happened was basically shuffling bits of paper around.  The ultimate owner of the stadium never really changed, it was still Mel Morris's to do with as he wanted.  We made a paper profit to offset the paper losses from the amortization on player purchases a few years earlier.  And the only reason we were doing that is because the FFP rules insist on tracking profit/loss over everything else.  I'm not claiming it was a good thing or anything, but it's not necessarily a flashing red alarm that we were going into admin or anything.
    Part of the problem with this stuff is we never really got to see what the actual endgame was.  The amortization policy was basically shifting paper losses further into the future (and if you are going to claim anything is dubious about the accounting methods, then this is the thing to look at, not overvaluing assets).  We never really got to see if and what the plan for dealing with those future-problems actually was, or if we were just going to end up with a big points deduction for failing FFP in a few years time.  The EFL basically rewriting years of our accounts by retroactively cancelling the amortization policy, and then COVID blowing everything up, meant we got hit with all those problems before we had a chance to put anything in place to deal with them.  Maybe we had a plan, maybe we didn't, but we'll never know.
    And as an aside, there's definitely an argument that the stadium sale turned out to be a good thing in some ways.  If the stadium had still been in our ownership when we went into admin, the very first thing Quantuma would have done is sold it off for as much as they could to get some cash into the club.  And that's not a slight on Quantuma or anything, it would have been legally the correct thing for them to do.  So there's a decent chance we would have ended up with the stadium being owned by some random Panamanian loan sharks, and it would have cost us a whole lot more to buy it back than we ended up paying Morris/MSD for it.  Ironically, I seem to remember Morris making that argument when the sale occurred - something about wanting to prevent a potential unscrupulous owner from flogging the stadium to make a quick buck and screwing the club.  I'm not sure he ever thought he would kind of end up being that owner.
  9. Like
    duncanjwitham got a reaction from Carl Sagan in Quantuma   
    Stuff like this is why people don’t like Maguire.  Skim reading that tweet makes it sound like Quantuma have been charged with wire fraud, when in fact it’s a “company makes profit” non-story.  I’m sure it’s deliberately worded that way as click-bait.
  10. Clap
    duncanjwitham got a reaction from Ghost of Clough in Quantuma   
    Stuff like this is why people don’t like Maguire.  Skim reading that tweet makes it sound like Quantuma have been charged with wire fraud, when in fact it’s a “company makes profit” non-story.  I’m sure it’s deliberately worded that way as click-bait.
  11. Like
    duncanjwitham got a reaction from Steve How Hard? in Quantuma   
    Stuff like this is why people don’t like Maguire.  Skim reading that tweet makes it sound like Quantuma have been charged with wire fraud, when in fact it’s a “company makes profit” non-story.  I’m sure it’s deliberately worded that way as click-bait.
  12. Clap
    duncanjwitham got a reaction from jono in Quantuma   
    Stuff like this is why people don’t like Maguire.  Skim reading that tweet makes it sound like Quantuma have been charged with wire fraud, when in fact it’s a “company makes profit” non-story.  I’m sure it’s deliberately worded that way as click-bait.
  13. Like
    duncanjwitham got a reaction from May Contain Nuts in Quantuma   
    Stuff like this is why people don’t like Maguire.  Skim reading that tweet makes it sound like Quantuma have been charged with wire fraud, when in fact it’s a “company makes profit” non-story.  I’m sure it’s deliberately worded that way as click-bait.
  14. Like
    duncanjwitham got a reaction from Carnero in Quantuma   
    Stuff like this is why people don’t like Maguire.  Skim reading that tweet makes it sound like Quantuma have been charged with wire fraud, when in fact it’s a “company makes profit” non-story.  I’m sure it’s deliberately worded that way as click-bait.
  15. Like
    duncanjwitham got a reaction from FlyBritishMidland in Quantuma   
    Stuff like this is why people don’t like Maguire.  Skim reading that tweet makes it sound like Quantuma have been charged with wire fraud, when in fact it’s a “company makes profit” non-story.  I’m sure it’s deliberately worded that way as click-bait.
  16. Like
    duncanjwitham got a reaction from therealhantsram in Quantuma   
    Stuff like this is why people don’t like Maguire.  Skim reading that tweet makes it sound like Quantuma have been charged with wire fraud, when in fact it’s a “company makes profit” non-story.  I’m sure it’s deliberately worded that way as click-bait.
  17. Haha
    duncanjwitham got a reaction from Mucker1884 in Stephen Pearce on Radio Derby 6pm Tuesday   
    Surely that would decrease the value?
  18. Like
    duncanjwitham got a reaction from Foreveram in Stephen Pearce on Radio Derby 6pm Tuesday   
    Because they were made to look very, very stupid by the original decision.  They made a massive song and dance about how naughty we'd been, dragged us through the mud for years about it, and then when it came down to it, it turned out we were right all along.  They'd employed two experts who knew absolutely nothing about the subjects they were supposed to be experts on, and got called out for it in a big way.  Wasted years of people's time and who knows how much of the league clubs money.  After all their shouting, we basically ended up with a slap on the wrist for a very minor deficiency in our record keeping.  Of course they were going to appeal that.  And that's not to mention the pressure being put on them by 'Boro and co.
  19. Like
    duncanjwitham got a reaction from Foreveram in Stephen Pearce on Radio Derby 6pm Tuesday   
    The entirety of the EFL's actions (as a governing body that is, not the league as a whole) only make sense through a lens of them just wanting their cushy little existence to go on, and not be bothered by anything.  They were quite happy to let us get on with doing whatever we wanted, until 'Boro and co started threatening them, so they felt they had to act.  They buried their head in the sand about 'Boro and co's actions during our admin and waited until Morris finally stepped in and sorted it out.  They're doing their best to ignore issues at other clubs like Reading.  They just want the world to leave them alone to their prawn sandwiches.
    I think if we'd won the appeal, they would have maybe let it go, as that was possibly a big enough stick to deter 'Boro.  They'd probably amend the rules to force straight-line amortization for everyone and stop stadium sales counting for FFP going forwards (which they did anyway on both counts).  But no retrospective changes for our accounts.
    But honestly, that first IDC report, particularly the bit about the stadium valuation, should have ended them as a governing body.  There should be no coming back from spending hundreds of thousands of pounds having a guy who'd never ever valued a football stadium (and had literally no clue how to go about it) redo a disputed valuation, and then construe an entire set of charges and tribunals off the back of it.  The clubs themselves should have kicked them out for the sheer abuse of power and waste of resources.
  20. Like
    duncanjwitham got a reaction from FlyBritishMidland in Stephen Pearce on Radio Derby 6pm Tuesday   
    It's not what it's "worth", it was valued on the basis of what it would cost to replace it with a new one, less the wear on it, which is an absolutely standard way to value assets like this.  When you consider Brentford have just spend ~£70m building a 17k stadium, and Brighton spent ~£90m on a 32k one pretty recently, those figures look more than reasonable.  Neither the EFL's independent commission, or the appeals into that decision, could find anything wrong with the valuation.
    If you want a detailed explanation of exactly how and why it was valued at the figure it was, I suggest you read the report from the first tribunal hearing.  There's a very detailed breakdown of everything in there.  And consider that the EFLs inexperienced valuer, who basically valued it on the basis of it being equivalent to a 3-sides-terraced stadium, still thought it was worth £50m+.
  21. Haha
    duncanjwitham got a reaction from ossieram in Stephen Pearce on Radio Derby 6pm Tuesday   
    Surely that would decrease the value?
  22. Like
    duncanjwitham got a reaction from Ghost of Clough in Stephen Pearce on Radio Derby 6pm Tuesday   
    I have no memory of us pulling an expert at the last minute (and I read the IDC reports very thoroughly at the time).  There was something to do with their expert witness producing a report at the last minute, and we were offered the chance to delay the hearing and prepare a counter argument to it, but we declined to.  Not sure if this is what you are thinking of?  Presumably we thought our arguments were sound enough and didn't want the whole thing dragging out even more.
    From what I remember (and my retelling may be slightly biased...), we put our accountant up as a witness to explain what our policy actually was, and there was a qualified accountant on the panel, who is supposed to be there to understand the accounting stuff.  We presented our policy, we believed it clearly met the accounting rules as they were written, so further expert witness testimony was not needed.  The EFL effectively put up an expert witness to argue that standard accounting terms didn't mean what everyone thought they meant, that up is down, the sky isn't blue etc. 
    So the original panel basically ignored their expert witness on the grounds he was clueless, took the evidence of our accountant and the guy on the panels own experience to rule in our favour.  The expert witness didn't even understand the rules he was there to give evidence on.  Then the appeals panels basically said you can't do that - your accountant is there as a factual witness not an expert one, and the panel member is there as a judge, not a witness.  So the only expert in the room says up is down, so for the purposes of this decision, up is officially down.
    Basically, we screwed it up.  If we had found any independent expert witness to stand there and say what we did was fine, it would have been he-said she-said on expert witnesses and the appeals panel would have left the original decision as is.  And given that even the EFL's own choice of forensic accountant on the panel agreed with our policy, it shouldn't have been difficult to find some else to agree with it.  But I stand by that we shouldn't have had to do that.  The purpose of having an expert on the panel is to deal with stuff like this.
  23. Haha
    duncanjwitham got a reaction from ck- in Stephen Pearce on Radio Derby 6pm Tuesday   
    Surely that would decrease the value?
  24. Cheers
    duncanjwitham reacted to G STAR RAM in Stephen Pearce on Radio Derby 6pm Tuesday   
    I was meaning I don't think the club benefited from the cash following the sale, think it merely covered cash MM had previously injected into the club.
  25. Like
    duncanjwitham got a reaction from Ghost of Clough in Stephen Pearce on Radio Derby 6pm Tuesday   
    I think if the stadium had been sold off to a 3rd party because we needed cash into the club quickly, then absolutely that should have set off alarm bells.  What actually happened was basically shuffling bits of paper around.  The ultimate owner of the stadium never really changed, it was still Mel Morris's to do with as he wanted.  We made a paper profit to offset the paper losses from the amortization on player purchases a few years earlier.  And the only reason we were doing that is because the FFP rules insist on tracking profit/loss over everything else.  I'm not claiming it was a good thing or anything, but it's not necessarily a flashing red alarm that we were going into admin or anything.
    Part of the problem with this stuff is we never really got to see what the actual endgame was.  The amortization policy was basically shifting paper losses further into the future (and if you are going to claim anything is dubious about the accounting methods, then this is the thing to look at, not overvaluing assets).  We never really got to see if and what the plan for dealing with those future-problems actually was, or if we were just going to end up with a big points deduction for failing FFP in a few years time.  The EFL basically rewriting years of our accounts by retroactively cancelling the amortization policy, and then COVID blowing everything up, meant we got hit with all those problems before we had a chance to put anything in place to deal with them.  Maybe we had a plan, maybe we didn't, but we'll never know.
    And as an aside, there's definitely an argument that the stadium sale turned out to be a good thing in some ways.  If the stadium had still been in our ownership when we went into admin, the very first thing Quantuma would have done is sold it off for as much as they could to get some cash into the club.  And that's not a slight on Quantuma or anything, it would have been legally the correct thing for them to do.  So there's a decent chance we would have ended up with the stadium being owned by some random Panamanian loan sharks, and it would have cost us a whole lot more to buy it back than we ended up paying Morris/MSD for it.  Ironically, I seem to remember Morris making that argument when the sale occurred - something about wanting to prevent a potential unscrupulous owner from flogging the stadium to make a quick buck and screwing the club.  I'm not sure he ever thought he would kind of end up being that owner.
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