duncanjwitham

Surely that would decrease the value?

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.

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.

Surely that would decrease the value?

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.

Surely that would decrease the value?

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+.

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+.

I mean, we're basically in that position now.  Maybe Pearce should resign in protest at the horrendous way Clowes is running the club?  I'm sure that would make a few heads explode on here.
(I'm sure I don't need a sarcasm tag, but just in case... /s)

Aren't most football clubs at Championship level and above part of a "flawed unsustainable business structure", propped up by the largesse of their owners? Until they decide to pull the plug - and that's where the current problem in football lies. 
Does that mean every CEO is at fault for following the instructions of their owners? 
There's one person to blame for the mess at Derby County, and he is no longer owner! 

That's certainly my take on it.  We overcommitted financially, with Morris was happily covering the shortfall each month, up until he decided he couldn't afford it and stopped.  The EFL issues (on top of accumulating debt) basically prevented a sale, and then a combination of those 2 factors plus COVID pushed us over the edge.  There's no super secret conspiracy, or pots of missing money to find or anything.
Regarding Pearce, the only major issues you can have with him are the overcommitting and the amortization method stuff.  If Morris had committed to covering the shortfall, then I'm not sure what Pearce was supposed to do about it.  Almost every football club in the country is reliant on their owner putting money in to keep the lights on, we weren't unusual in that respect (and are still in that kind of position now, to some degree).  And for what it's worth, I suspect the NDAs are mostly around this stuff - what guarantees Morris gave to the club about putting money in, and whether he stuck to them or not.
And of course, the amortization method was signed off by at least 4 separate sets of accountants, including the EFL's own choice of independent forensic accountant, so it's hard to pin blame on Pearce for that.

2 mistakes is definitely pushing it though…

As far as I know, the positional stuff is all automated.  All the player positions are tracked throughout the match anyway, which is where sites like whoscored are getting their data from.  Players wear monitors IIRC, that tracks their position, as well as heart rates etc.  They are then basically comparing each chance (in terms of attacker position, distance and angle from goal, keeper position, defender positions etc) with thousands of similar chances from other games and seeing what proportion of those chances were actually scored.  This is where the discrepancies come in - how do you decide what’s similar enough to factor into your comparison, or which individual elements matter the most (is distance from goal more important than the angle or not etc).  This isn’t being done for each goal individually though, they will come up with a model where you can feed the player positions in and it will churn out an xG at the end.
Individual player abilities aren’t supposed to be factored in - it’s supposed to be how likely is an average striker (for the level we’re talking about) going to score this chance against average defenders and keeper etc.  

Yeah, I'm not saying he's definitely going to be awful or going to be great.  But he's been here a nearly month and has contributed absolutely nothing so far.  Surely the intention of signing one of the most productive wingers in the league this season, was that we could just drop him into the side and he would carry on being productive?  Not giving him a couple of months to get fit, and maybe we'll see something before the end of the season.  That's what's feeding into peoples disappointment with him.  

You know all those times when we cross the ball into the box, but there's nobody there, because Collins is stood by the touchline for some reason? It's just going to be like that all the time.

You know all those times when we cross the ball into the box, but there's nobody there, because Collins is stood by the touchline for some reason? It's just going to be like that all the time.

You know all those times when we cross the ball into the box, but there's nobody there, because Collins is stood by the touchline for some reason? It's just going to be like that all the time.

Your positivity is always contagious.

To be fair, I think that's a standard clause that FA rules require to be in those type of loan agreements.

Not sure what that's got to do with what I posted 🤷‍♂️.
The point is, while you personally might not be bothering with the roof until the walls are built, someone somewhere is thinking about what type of foundations they need, how the walls are laid out, how the roof will be supported by those walls and so on.  Likewise, Warne might not personally be responsible for getting us to the Premier League, but someone somewhere should be thinking about what we need to do (long term) to get there and making sure that the people currently working on the project are sticking to that plan (be that using a style that can be effective at higher levels, signing players we can develop for higher levels, introducing youth players into the first team, or whatever).

Yeah, I'm not saying he's definitely going to be awful or going to be great.  But he's been here a nearly month and has contributed absolutely nothing so far.  Surely the intention of signing one of the most productive wingers in the league this season, was that we could just drop him into the side and he would carry on being productive?  Not giving him a couple of months to get fit, and maybe we'll see something before the end of the season.  That's what's feeding into peoples disappointment with him.  

I think that's kind of part of it.  He was supposed to be the big marquee signing, the hotshot in-form goal-scoring winger, the missing piece of the puzzle to kick us on a level (or it certainly felt like that was the intention from the outside).  Now, instead of that, he's suddenly not fit, then he's injured, then he's playing but not really fit.  Plus he doesn't really seem to fit the gas-out, aggressive pressing type of football that we want to play either.  So it kind of feels like, instead of blowing our budget on a difference-maker, we've wasted on it on someone who's struggling to even get in the side.

I think that's kind of part of it.  He was supposed to be the big marquee signing, the hotshot in-form goal-scoring winger, the missing piece of the puzzle to kick us on a level (or it certainly felt like that was the intention from the outside).  Now, instead of that, he's suddenly not fit, then he's injured, then he's playing but not really fit.  Plus he doesn't really seem to fit the gas-out, aggressive pressing type of football that we want to play either.  So it kind of feels like, instead of blowing our budget on a difference-maker, we've wasted on it on someone who's struggling to even get in the side.

That's certainly my take on it.  We overcommitted financially, with Morris was happily covering the shortfall each month, up until he decided he couldn't afford it and stopped.  The EFL issues (on top of accumulating debt) basically prevented a sale, and then a combination of those 2 factors plus COVID pushed us over the edge.  There's no super secret conspiracy, or pots of missing money to find or anything.
Regarding Pearce, the only major issues you can have with him are the overcommitting and the amortization method stuff.  If Morris had committed to covering the shortfall, then I'm not sure what Pearce was supposed to do about it.  Almost every football club in the country is reliant on their owner putting money in to keep the lights on, we weren't unusual in that respect (and are still in that kind of position now, to some degree).  And for what it's worth, I suspect the NDAs are mostly around this stuff - what guarantees Morris gave to the club about putting money in, and whether he stuck to them or not.
And of course, the amortization method was signed off by at least 4 separate sets of accountants, including the EFL's own choice of independent forensic accountant, so it's hard to pin blame on Pearce for that.

I think that's kind of part of it.  He was supposed to be the big marquee signing, the hotshot in-form goal-scoring winger, the missing piece of the puzzle to kick us on a level (or it certainly felt like that was the intention from the outside).  Now, instead of that, he's suddenly not fit, then he's injured, then he's playing but not really fit.  Plus he doesn't really seem to fit the gas-out, aggressive pressing type of football that we want to play either.  So it kind of feels like, instead of blowing our budget on a difference-maker, we've wasted on it on someone who's struggling to even get in the side.