StarterForTen

10 hours ago, BaaLocks said:

I think it's an incredible stretch of the imagination to expect any club to be going on a similar journey to Leicester ten years later, with the gap that has developed since.

Not an incredible stretch of the imagination, though it may be an incredible stretch of the reality!

28 minutes ago, BaaLocks said:

Yup, and I'm by no means saying that Derby can't be an established EPL club but, in order:

1: Leicester were not £60m in debt, under transfer embargo, without filed accounts and coming off a season where they were three minutes from being relegated when they were bought. Indeed Vichai became a fan after watching them in the 1997 League Cup Final, not sure there are too many billionaires around who saw us at Wembley as their first game.

2: Sorry, but Leicester is a bigger city than Derby and with a much wider hinterland than us, stretching across to East Anglia and down to Northants.

3: They got there first, yes that could have been us but when the deal for Leicester went through in 2010 there was so much less of a gap than there is now.

4: The Leicester owners are, by pretty much all's acceptance, an anomaly in the modern game - there for the city and the club (for reasons I don't quite understand but still).

Life is unfair maybe, but it didn't happen to us and it's much more unlikely than ever to happen now.

Again all very fair points. But I don’t give as much weight to point 2. Leicester might be a slightly bigger city than Derby but then they have two clubs to support - Tigers are the best supported rugby side in the UK. 

And Leicester weren’t in that rosey a state in 2010. Admittedly they were better positioned than we are now but they didn’t have the academy set up we have.

But we’re getting distracted by semantics, the point is that a journey for Derby like Leicester have been on is not too far of a stretch of the imagination.

1 hour ago, Wignall12 said:

New Centre Half ? ......is he German perchance ?

Thought he was Newcastle's goalie... Karl Darl(ow)ek?

25 minutes ago, BaaLocks said:

The main issue is the debt - if we're as riddled with it as many claim then I just don't see why anyone would want to be £60m under water when they could buy an almost 'identical' product in (for example only) Bristol City, Sunderland, Middlesborough, Swansea, Hull, Reading, Birmingham City, Blackburn, Huddersfield or many others without the same level of burden.

Founder member of the Football League? I see that being three bits of meaningless to pretty much any investor - EPL maybe but being in the same club as Accrington, Notts County, Bolton, Preston and Stoke back in 1888 is hardly a feat that will put a zero on the selling price. Like you said, without the emotion it's not much to bolster the sales price.

Final point, we're an attractive proposition in terms of infrastructure but even the most avid Derby fan would say that 35k is probably the best we would pull, even if we were top end of the EPL. And our global footprint, here and now, is really limited - Notts Forest, Middlesborough, Charlton, Fulham and even someone like Portsmouth would be a more internationally recognised option. We're a one city club, and a very well supported one, but not one that has a massive hinterland before we start getting into Notts, Leicester or Sheffield.

Derby have all the pieces in place to be a well run top end of the Championship / established EPL club. But - to your point - the last 18 months has really dented all but the infrastructure and leaves us rather unattractive as an option. We need to take our medicine, somehow get ourselves back in order and start to move things in the right direction before we can start dreaming. I know many on here think we're the ideal option for a growth minded businessman looking to invest in an English side - I think we're not till we have a more firm base to work from, which might even require an interim owner to steady the ship a little.

All fair points. But where were Leicester City 10 years ago?

I read in one of the broadsheets last year (Guardian I think) that their market value is now estimated to be £500m+. I suspect that would offer a decent ROI for their owners.

Far too much weight being put behind the comments of a Fleet Street hack. I’m sure Alan Nixon has good contacts at the EFL, and he’ll know from them  that Mel is not a popular figure within the organisation following his very public attacks about recent broadcast deals. After that, he’s just putting two and two together and making whatever number he wants to. 

I've said this before but straight-line amortisation is not appropriate for intangible assets like players' contracts; it skews true balance sheet value.

Buy player X as a promising 21 year old from Man United's reserves for £4m on a four year contract; said Player X signs a new contract in the third year of his stint with a book value of £1m, shortly before being called up for his country and is now worth considerably more.

Any FFP protocol has to allow for gains as well as losses, otherwise it's just a stick to beat clubs with.

Parachute payments skew the viability of the entire Football League structure and are at the core of all of the problems within the EFL right now. Championship clubs stretch themselves to offer playing budgets to compete with the recently relegated PL cohort which pushes up the average earnings of the players in the division and, in turn pushes up the demands of those playing in the divisions below causing the entire pyramid to totter in the 99th percentile of viability.

But what is the other option? To close off the Premier League and allow them to eat themselves? It would bring back sporting integrity to the EFL, but no-one would vote for capping ambition.

Time is very tight here, isn't it.

ASSUMING the appeal verdict has been made in the EFL's favour then the next step is a Disciplinary Panel to decide on the punishment, the outcome of which can be appealed by the Club. Given that the EFL divisions are constituted for the new season at the AGM, there would have to be the disciplinary panel convened; it's decision made, a period of time for consideration of an appeal, the hearing of any appeal and the outcome made, all in about four weeks.

As it's taken about two years to get to this stage, that will require a considerable acceleration in activity!

1 minute ago, Coconut said:

It's like being given the death penalty in 2021 because it's been found that you farted in a lift in 1992, even though it only became illegal to fart in a lift in 2019.

Fast forward to 2025 and as of 1st January the laws against farting in lifts are relaxed and the offence only carries a £50 fine.

Unfortunately for you, you were given the lethal injection on 31st December 2024.

However, you can not deny that farting in a lift is wrong on so many levels...

An EFL season does not officially end until the AGM, normally held a week or so after the play off finals. Only at this point are relegations and promotions ratified and the process of drawing up fixtures for the new season begins.

Technically, the EFL could impose any sanction up to the point of the AGM vote that accepts the season's final standings.

Apologies if this has already been said but it looks to me like Mel and Erik have struck a 'hand-in-hand' deal, whereby the purchase of the Club (probably for a relatively nominal fee given its dwindling assets and loss-making status) is linked to the separate purchase of the real estate (stadium, training ground, or any combination of these!) for a far greater amount - for the sake of argument (as I have not a clue) lets say that is for the amount Mel bought it from the Club for at £80m

If that is the case, then Our Erik may well be able to 'fund the deal' for the Club out of cash. Probably be able to do so by emptying the change out of his pockets because its likely to be (relative) peanuts.

But he would then need to raise funds against the stadium to purchase that. And how will that debt be serviced? Most likely through a lease/rental/service charge fee levied by Erik on the Cub for the use of the stadium. An £80m asset at 4% rental, that's (a hypothetical) £3.2m per year straight out of operating income.

By most sensible definitions, this scenario would be the club paying for itself, albeit through a circuitous route.

But then it might be the only way the Club can move forward because until the ownership changes the Club remains in the quick sand up to it's neck.

And if this model allows Erik to spend a bit of cash on revamping the playing squad over the short term, it might even pay dividends.

2 minutes ago, G STAR RAM said:

Unsurprisingly HMRC dont suffer the same as other creditors. 

True, but the football debts gets paid before HMRC and hardly ever is there much left in the trough after the gravy train brigade are sated.

5 minutes ago, Carnero said:

Because they don't know what it is and what it entails. It's just a term that football fans have picked up over the years and now use without any real understanding.

I don't mean to be pious but some football fans see Administration as the 'short term pain for long term gain' approach to seeing a their club become a better football team. Sorry, but advocating administration is morally corrupt.

Any business that goes into administration has a knock-on effect for other businesses that don't get paid what they are rightly owed; quite often leading to a few people losing their own livelihoods for no fault of their own. At the very least it deprives entities like HMRC of revenue.

To suggest that pathway is right because it will wipe out debt - and by obvious inference, allow a football club to spend on players again - is wrong on every level.

30 minutes ago, Tamworthram said:

Mmmm. So you’re saying there is no “mathematical possibility” of Wycombe winning both their games and Derby losing both theirs? I agree it’s unlikely but it’s still mathematically possible.

 

I think that's not what Ken Tram is suggesting. This was a statistical modelling based on past performance to suggest most likley future outcomes. Of course there is a mathematical chance but the modelling suggested it will not happen.

I must have a masochistic streak because a bit of me would now feel short changed if this didn't go down to the last minute of the last game...

31 minutes ago, Mckram said:

Saturday has to be our cup final. Anything less than a win isn’t good enough. We win Saturday then we stay up. We shouldn’t even be considering giving Wednesday a sniff on the last day against us. We’ve seen how we play in games against the teams at the bottom of the league.

I actually think that we will get nothing and Wednesday will get at least a point against Forest. But this is our last life line now...we’re like a cat with 9 lives and this is the last one. 

We don't have to win on Saturday, we just have to match Wednesday's result - if we do they are relegated no matter what they do against Forest. As they kick off early, we'll know what is needed before we get underway.

If Wednesday lose to Forest, then we can lose both of our remaining games and will still finish above them. Of course Rotherham might put us both down if we do!

For what it's worth (very little!) I think both Derby and Wednesday will draw on Saturday; Owls will then be relegated and we will beat them last day to relegate Rotherham with them. They would rather be competing with Rotherham next season for automatic promotion than a Derby that has most likely undergone a change in ownership, management and playing squad.

1 hour ago, Millenniumram said:

I mean that certainly hasn’t helped, but all clubs have been affected by that, and few are in as bad a position as we are. The problems started long before the pandemic hit.

I wouldn't be so sure about others not being in as bad a position as Derby seem to be. Perhaps we just know more about Derby's problems.

1 hour ago, Curtains said:

Brentford probably resting players which is worrying .

But the same then might apply to Swansea on Saturday surely?

I'd take issue with JP's verdict that the club face 'serious punishment' if the appeal finds in the EFL's favour. My take is that the complaint surrounds how the change in amortisation policy was incorrectly reported, not an issue with the policy itself.

Let's be honest, if that is the case, anything more than a slap on wrist would be grossly unfair.

1 minute ago, Topram said:

Seems to get dodger by the hour

Apart from Alonso has only ever said that the money is all his and not from third-party investors?

I think it is only media commentators that have suggested the Far East money men link.

I suppose there is some merit in aiming for the stars.

After all, if you only make it 0.0001% of the way there you've still gone further than any other human being!

14 minutes ago, Ambitious said:

Outstanding. 

We have all on staying in the Championship, having scored 13 goals from open play in 41 games, so talk of the Champions League is only going to add to the current mockery this club is under. 

Agreed.

I was all for this guy's enthusiasm, but that line just makes him look like a twonk.

Football club ambitions should be aligned to weight loss - concentrate on hitting the small, achievable goals before you start talking about the designer clothes three sizes smaller!

Perhaps Chansiri rumbled that Alonso was the Trojan Horse for a takeover and told him to f-off as a result?

It's clear that Alonso and his backers are keen to acquire a club with the capability of getting in - and commercially sustaining life in - the Premier League as two months after an attempt to buy SWFC he's agreed terms for a purchase of DCFC.

This doesn't have to be bad news. We'll know more once those providing the wonga to fund this step out of the shadows - as they are bound to do.

I'm going glass half full on this and hoping for the best!

3 hours ago, derby8 said:

31 March 1951, Derby 6 Middlesbrough 0.

Seven years before Gibson was even born, and we still liked to stuff 'em...!

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