Shaftesbury Street

Exactly. Fundamentally individual ownership leads to decision making which doesn't have to undergo checks & balances until the worst happens; poor results and/or poor financial situation. Its also very easy to allow ego to rule head particularly when you're dealing with the adulation or extreme criticism of the fans & even more so if you're a fan of the club. Can't fault Mel's commitment or his business acumen to become wealthy in the first place but the reality is his football decisions have been extremely poor.
Regarding the fans model, I would like this for Derby in any case & not just as a crisis measure in the midst of our current financial problems. Looks like from Alan Nixon's tweet this morning, we have a number of bidders for the club - great on paper but they're very likely just going to refinance debt/employ a leveraged buyout to have a 1/2 year stab at promotion. Great if it works but potentially catastrophic if it doesn't.
Sustainability seems a dirty word in football but the reality is it enables a club to actually think about long term planning/strategies that are far more likely to be successful than chucking cash at the problem. Derby by size of club are top 20 in the country - no reason why we couldn't sustain a top flight club naturally rather than relying on handouts.

100% agree. 
I think Alan Sugar recently suggested what a farcical idea it was to have an average joe make key decisions about the club (or group collective). I would rather put my trust with the fans than have years have poor decisions from a dictator, oil tycoon or random American consortium. Also lets not pretend that running a football club is like anything else. I know many people that have had personal dealings with Mel, all have said what brilliant business man he is. You would have thought a ridiculously wealthy Derby fan, with immense business pedigree would would be a dream owner for our club and through either desperation or ego it has turned out to be the exact opposite.
That's not to say you can't have a great package in a individual owner and it working well (Leicester) but there are not many examples of that. If the pandemic and ESL has proven anything its that football is broken and fans need to have a greater voice. I'm not sure if a 51% model is the answer for Derby but if there is a genuine threat of liquidation, its definitely something we should explore.

Why would the examples have to be English ?   If it can be done in Spain or Germany, it can be done in England surely?   There is no reason to believe in English exceptionalism in a footballing sense.
The culture of fan based clubs has not developed in England yet, but that doesn't mean that it can never do so.

Spot on. Just because the culture in England is for owner managed clubs to run up big losses chasing the dream & blind hope that one day a petro-billionaire will arrive, doesn't mean thats the only way to run a club.
After all the bad publicity & financial waste of the past 6 years, it'd be brilliant for Derby to be a shining example to the rest of the top 2 divisions of what fans can achieve.
I keep harking back to two things; our fanbase gives us massive advantages at this level, we should leverage it much better. And the example of AFC Wimbledon in the division below is testament to how fans can build & run a successful club.
I honesty believe a break even model at Derby without the boom & bust cycles of the past 3 decades, will lead to greater success than we've had in the last 30 years.

So many thoughts on this, but the main one is: IT CAN BE DONE.
To do it requires a lot of joint thought and action. But where better to start the ball rolling than this forum? I've read knowledgeable contributions from business owners, accountants, ex-footballers, and loads more: people with experience in all walks of life. The wisdom of crowds is not a myth.
 

Interested to hear peoples thoughts on this and if its actually a viable option. 
Just from a fag packet maths point of view (and the numbers being floated about) we would need £30 mill a year to run the club. This might improve as the costs are reduced and fans return but as a rough estimate. Then if we assume maybe 20k would invest, that's £1500 per year, per fan. Yeah....
The only way I can see that working, is if its propped up by a wealthy backer for a large share (or 49%) and fans have the main voting rights. 
We would also need to completely throw out our recruitment process. Potentially becoming an academy focused/ feeder club. I'd have no problem with this, so long as we set the player values in a tiered system and a 'the price is the price' policy. So we don't get our pants pulled down in the transfer market. (Tier 5 500k, tier 4 £1m, tiers 3 £1m-£3m) all with sell ons.
If money does come in for a player, we would need to either put that back into the academy or buy realistic targets. Maybe a more data led/ moneyball approach. Its not a perfect system at Brentford but its a hell of lot better system then ours! Big money sale, all 'member' fans to be reimbursed that season.
I appreciate this is dreamland, but with the pandemic, ESL and the very real prospect of our club going under, just thought I'd put it out there. 
Maybe someone with a bit of financial/ accounting background can tell me its a ridiculous idea ??‍♂️

That's some really good insight and encouraging that its not a pipe dream for a championship club!
In regards to who would front it, I think it would need to be something fresh with an elected representative each year (or three for consistency).

Its an idea that I would really like to see work & totally agree with your points about change in recruitment & the need to sell players to progress. I wouldn't actually see it as a backward step either.
From a financials point of view, we turnover around £30m a year - earnt income in other words. Therefore the gap between the costs of running the club & the £30m is what fans would need to stump up each year. Looking at the 16/17 and 17/18 accounts, that is around £40m and tallies with @Carnero point about GSE having to find circa £10m a season to cover the shortfall back when they ran the club.
So we'd have 2 options really;
We continue to run a staff cost of circa £40m assuming that this is the minimum outlay we'd need to be seriously competitive in the division especially from a wages perspective. £10m a season equates to 1000 fans stumping up £10k a season if the club were wholly fan owned. Of course that amount would be diluted if we could have a 50+1 German model, where 49% of the club was owned by businessmen. We insist on a model where costs can never exceed that turnover figure of £30m. This would necessitate a fundamental restructure of the club as you allude to with the Academy becoming an essential route to providing first team players & looking to buy players with potential from lower leagues & improve them. It would also require a long term approach to being successful & a total departure from glamour names, quick fix solutions & a massive dose of fan patience. This would be my preference. Given the size of the club/fanbase in relation to the rest of the EFL, we are best placed to make something like this work (with the possible exception of Sunderland & maybe Sheff Wednesday). If we looked to adopt option 1, I think we'd need to be realistic about how many fans would be able to fund the club in this way - anything more than 1000 is fanciful & some would even think that many people is too many. 
The other key issue is how to organise ourselves as a fan collective & how to put people with serious talent at the forefront of a fans buyout. Ramstrust would seem an obvious conduit but know there was a lot of factionalism back in 2005/6 when various groups took it upon themselves to unsettle the 3 Amigos & then started claiming credit/abusing other groups when Gadsby et al slung the parasites out.
In summary, yes I think its definitely possible. I will try & do some reading on the ownership structures & stories of AFC Wimbledon, Hearts & the German ownership model to see if there's anything else to glean there. 

Interested to hear peoples thoughts on this and if its actually a viable option. 
Just from a fag packet maths point of view (and the numbers being floated about) we would need £30 mill a year to run the club. This might improve as the costs are reduced and fans return but as a rough estimate. Then if we assume maybe 20k would invest, that's £1500 per year, per fan. Yeah....
The only way I can see that working, is if its propped up by a wealthy backer for a large share (or 49%) and fans have the main voting rights. 
We would also need to completely throw out our recruitment process. Potentially becoming an academy focused/ feeder club. I'd have no problem with this, so long as we set the player values in a tiered system and a 'the price is the price' policy. So we don't get our pants pulled down in the transfer market. (Tier 5 500k, tier 4 £1m, tiers 3 £1m-£3m) all with sell ons.
If money does come in for a player, we would need to either put that back into the academy or buy realistic targets. Maybe a more data led/ moneyball approach. Its not a perfect system at Brentford but its a hell of lot better system then ours! Big money sale, all 'member' fans to be reimbursed that season.
I appreciate this is dreamland, but with the pandemic, ESL and the very real prospect of our club going under, just thought I'd put it out there. 
Maybe someone with a bit of financial/ accounting background can tell me its a ridiculous idea ??‍♂️

Do you think an academy model would fix that? It would a be revolving door, but a recently promoted academy players wages would be significantly less. 

Interested to hear peoples thoughts on this and if its actually a viable option. 
Just from a fag packet maths point of view (and the numbers being floated about) we would need £30 mill a year to run the club. This might improve as the costs are reduced and fans return but as a rough estimate. Then if we assume maybe 20k would invest, that's £1500 per year, per fan. Yeah....
The only way I can see that working, is if its propped up by a wealthy backer for a large share (or 49%) and fans have the main voting rights. 
We would also need to completely throw out our recruitment process. Potentially becoming an academy focused/ feeder club. I'd have no problem with this, so long as we set the player values in a tiered system and a 'the price is the price' policy. So we don't get our pants pulled down in the transfer market. (Tier 5 500k, tier 4 £1m, tiers 3 £1m-£3m) all with sell ons.
If money does come in for a player, we would need to either put that back into the academy or buy realistic targets. Maybe a more data led/ moneyball approach. Its not a perfect system at Brentford but its a hell of lot better system then ours! Big money sale, all 'member' fans to be reimbursed that season.
I appreciate this is dreamland, but with the pandemic, ESL and the very real prospect of our club going under, just thought I'd put it out there. 
Maybe someone with a bit of financial/ accounting background can tell me its a ridiculous idea ??‍♂️

I presume he's talking about one of these "heroes"?
 

Interested to hear peoples thoughts on this and if its actually a viable option. 
Just from a fag packet maths point of view (and the numbers being floated about) we would need £30 mill a year to run the club. This might improve as the costs are reduced and fans return but as a rough estimate. Then if we assume maybe 20k would invest, that's £1500 per year, per fan. Yeah....
The only way I can see that working, is if its propped up by a wealthy backer for a large share (or 49%) and fans have the main voting rights. 
We would also need to completely throw out our recruitment process. Potentially becoming an academy focused/ feeder club. I'd have no problem with this, so long as we set the player values in a tiered system and a 'the price is the price' policy. So we don't get our pants pulled down in the transfer market. (Tier 5 500k, tier 4 £1m, tiers 3 £1m-£3m) all with sell ons.
If money does come in for a player, we would need to either put that back into the academy or buy realistic targets. Maybe a more data led/ moneyball approach. Its not a perfect system at Brentford but its a hell of lot better system then ours! Big money sale, all 'member' fans to be reimbursed that season.
I appreciate this is dreamland, but with the pandemic, ESL and the very real prospect of our club going under, just thought I'd put it out there. 
Maybe someone with a bit of financial/ accounting background can tell me its a ridiculous idea ??‍♂️

I would love it if Derby used this current existential nightmare to re-launch as a democraticaly ran club (51%) owned by the fans. I just can't see a pathway to that happening though. 

It wouldn't take £30m a year to run a sensible mid-level championship club, under GSE's final years the net shortfall was around £8m/year which I would require funding. Sensible wage control is the answer to football's financial problems, but just never happens.

Democracy based voting, might be less whinging from the stands if they had a say...or more ha.

Interested to hear peoples thoughts on this and if its actually a viable option. 
Just from a fag packet maths point of view (and the numbers being floated about) we would need £30 mill a year to run the club. This might improve as the costs are reduced and fans return but as a rough estimate. Then if we assume maybe 20k would invest, that's £1500 per year, per fan. Yeah....
The only way I can see that working, is if its propped up by a wealthy backer for a large share (or 49%) and fans have the main voting rights. 
We would also need to completely throw out our recruitment process. Potentially becoming an academy focused/ feeder club. I'd have no problem with this, so long as we set the player values in a tiered system and a 'the price is the price' policy. So we don't get our pants pulled down in the transfer market. (Tier 5 500k, tier 4 £1m, tiers 3 £1m-£3m) all with sell ons.
If money does come in for a player, we would need to either put that back into the academy or buy realistic targets. Maybe a more data led/ moneyball approach. Its not a perfect system at Brentford but its a hell of lot better system then ours! Big money sale, all 'member' fans to be reimbursed that season.
I appreciate this is dreamland, but with the pandemic, ESL and the very real prospect of our club going under, just thought I'd put it out there. 
Maybe someone with a bit of financial/ accounting background can tell me its a ridiculous idea ??‍♂️

Interested to hear peoples thoughts on this and if its actually a viable option. 
Just from a fag packet maths point of view (and the numbers being floated about) we would need £30 mill a year to run the club. This might improve as the costs are reduced and fans return but as a rough estimate. Then if we assume maybe 20k would invest, that's £1500 per year, per fan. Yeah....
The only way I can see that working, is if its propped up by a wealthy backer for a large share (or 49%) and fans have the main voting rights. 
We would also need to completely throw out our recruitment process. Potentially becoming an academy focused/ feeder club. I'd have no problem with this, so long as we set the player values in a tiered system and a 'the price is the price' policy. So we don't get our pants pulled down in the transfer market. (Tier 5 500k, tier 4 £1m, tiers 3 £1m-£3m) all with sell ons.
If money does come in for a player, we would need to either put that back into the academy or buy realistic targets. Maybe a more data led/ moneyball approach. Its not a perfect system at Brentford but its a hell of lot better system then ours! Big money sale, all 'member' fans to be reimbursed that season.
I appreciate this is dreamland, but with the pandemic, ESL and the very real prospect of our club going under, just thought I'd put it out there. 
Maybe someone with a bit of financial/ accounting background can tell me its a ridiculous idea ??‍♂️

Probably in the accounts we haven't filed yet.

Wasn't this paid back in full last year?

Wasn't this paid back in full last year?

It's actually a win for the environment.
Middlesbrough council are going to install a new community combined heat and power system running off the piss boiling inside steve gibson.

Those two goals at the weekend must have really rub salt in Gibsons wounds ?

Those two goals at the weekend must have really rub salt in Gibsons wounds ?

Those two goals at the weekend must have really rub salt in Gibsons wounds ?