Woodley Ram

37 minutes ago, Crewton said:

There were no "headline" transfers out in 2019/20, but we received around £1.3M upfront for Liam Delap, £200k-ish for Luke Thomas and supposedly picked up anything between £6-7M via Lampard compensation and play-off final loser's gate receipts. So the upfront fee for Bielik was potentially more than covered. 

We also had much cheaper loans-in that season than 2018/19, and reduced the wage bill considerably as 35 players of various ages and status were either released/transferred (23) or loaned out (12) either for the whole season (eg : Carson) or half a season (eg : Bennett).

As a net result, I don't think it would be hard to make a case for saying that, after failing to win promotion at the last gasp, the club took steps to cut their cloth accordingly, whilst securing one quality young player as an investment (which he surely would have been but fur two unfortunate injuries?)

Not disagreeing.  I forgot about the Lampard and Rowett compensation (although we had to pay other people off  (Cocu and Keogh). Also the fee for Gordon and the three that went to Man Utd. I agree we did take steps to reduce wages and debt and have done since 16/17, never mind the playoffs. It was the spending that year (16/17) and the wages that has hurt us. Its not an issue to have less money incoming than the Gumps and Bristol City.

Other supporters think we overspent every year which is not true. The Gumps, and Bristol City have managed to get a few really big fees in.

52 minutes ago, Crewton said:

Some of the fees listed (both in and out) are clearly nonsense. In many cases, they've listed the headline "maximum possible" fee including add-ons - Bielik £10m, Hughes £8m, Johnson £6m, Buttercup £5m and so on. 

About a year ago, Ryan Conway tweeted that Derby's net spend since 2015/16 was approximately £22m, which seems a much more reliable estimate i.e c. £3.65m per season average. 

It's the wages that put our FFP position at risk. 

You are right of course, players in and out would be in instalments. But it does give an indication of debt (we are about £20m over on transfers). We over spent in 16/17 greatly and have not clawed all of that back from sales. whereas the Gumps have (they had a big spend the year before) , Middlesbrough also and Bristol City made a profit.

The two years that stand out are signing Billick  (19/20) without selling to compensate and 16/17. The other years we are mostly in credit. The issue was always the wages that went along with the signings, which have now gone. I think our debt is a historical one from wages. 

10 minutes ago, PistoldPete said:

 Not sure about these stats at all. Lampard said he made a profit in 2018/19 due to sales of players vydra and Weimann. Also a lot of sales happened in 2016/17 and 2017/18 including Ince, hendrick, Hughes etc.

I think the only real years we made a loss on transfers were 2015/16 and 2019/20.

have a look at the link he did 2.2m

Just now, Woodley Ram said:

DCFC

20/21 +7m

19/20 - 9m

18/19 + 2.2m

17/18 -1.1m

16/17  -26.3

The Gumps

19/20 +2m

18/19 -23.6m

17/18 +10.3m

16/17 +18.3m

17/18  + 7.5

Middlesbrough break even and Bristol City (they had some big sales) made £25m in that period 

so our transfer business has not been sustainable, where as the other 3 have.

please see link

player sales

19 hours ago, CornwallRam said:

I think it's interesting that other clubs view us as gaming the system to gain an unfair advantage. The thing is though, does that stack up?

To me gaining an unfair advantage really boils down to spending more on players than comparable clubs. Did we really do that? Certainly we had one Barmby window where we signed Johnson, Butterfield, Ince etc, but excluding that it doesn't feel like we've spent any more than any other ambitious Championship team.

I wonder if the big difference is that we have generally spent poorly? Consequently, we had to write off millions for most of our big signings, whereas our rivals tended to recoup at least some of their outlay, so their net spend is likely to be lower.

I'd love someone to look at the figures over Mel's tenure. I bet that Middlesbrough, Forest and Bristol City have spent more than us.

 

DCFC

20/21 +7m

19/20 - 9m

18/19 + 2.2m

17/18 -1.1m

16/17  -26.3

The Gumps

19/20 +2m

18/19 -23.6m

17/18 +10.3m

16/17 +18.3m

17/18  + 7.5

Middlesbrough break even and Bristol City (they had some big sales) made £25m in that period 

so our transfer business has not been sustainable, where as the other 3 have.

player sales

It would be good to have a comparison of the Covid losses for the last 2 seasons for all clubs in the championship.

- debts

- Income

- Wages and operational expenses

- Loss compared with non covid seasons

- amount funded by owners

I think that way we can gain a better understanding of possible success against the 12 points . Also other clubs and supporters might understand that we don't have the biggest debt, biggest wages etc etc  

On 11/10/2021 at 23:13, Topram said:

Really sad news about Preston’s owner… I’m sure they’ll be tributes on Saturday 

we need to show our respects and then beat them or at least take something from the game

0-1 Derby Lawrence FRGS

19 minutes ago, Ghost of Clough said:

It's not just those to non-sales though. It's also recruiting players and not offering other players out to clubs which compound the issue.

In my opinion, the appeal will come down to whether we did all we could to avoid administration despite Covid. Given the club's statement, I'll assume a self-sustainable model from next season. Our transfer activity over the past two summers would suggest to me we could have done more. The Covid impact was £20m. Could we have made up that amount from sales, not signing players for fees, or further reducing the wage bill...

• £4m not spent on Jozwiak and Byrne.
• £4m for Buchanan and Lawrence.
• Wages saving of those 4 players players of £3m (2 players for 2 seasons, 2 for 1 season)
• Not signing Marshall would be an extra £2m
• Clarke, Kazim and Ibe another £1m
• Baldock, Stearman, Allsop, Jagielka, Morrison £1m
• Then we can sell the likes of Sibley, Knight, Bird, etc to cover the rest

Avoiding administration trumps having a competitive squad.

it dosnt work like that. Jozwiak was a small amount up front and the rest to follow, Bryne was peanuts. The money for Buchanan and Lawrence would have been less than £4m, may be £2.5m and that would be a fraction up front, probably 500k- 750k

Marshall was free the wages for all of those is minimal. Not having those in the team = relegation with large debts. out of interest what would your team look like with with all of those gone? 

1 hour ago, basilrobbie said:

Good post Woodley.

I should have been clearer about my reference to Wigan ; I wasn't trying to claim they were analogous (they're not, in many ways), but I was saying that the COVID impact argument was one that they had tried and it had found no favour.

I quite agree that you can point to more sustained damage over a longer period that Wigan could - but so can everyone else, and that is part of my point. Your woes have been compounded by the recklessness of the previous owner and I see no prospect of the EFL wearing any argument that suggests that you shouldn't be held  to account for that (I know it is crap for the fans, but that is an entirely separate discussion). Not least because they will alienate all the other 71 if they try it - I don't think people want Derby to be placed in purgatory, but they DO expect you to face some consequences for doing a series of things that sought to give you an advantage that many felt was unfair.

Is this ideal? Of course not. Are you the only club with dirty hands? Absolutely not. But there is a perception out there that Mr. Morris' behaviour is particularly egregious and I think the EFL are well aware of that and will take account of it. I've no idea of what Gibson thinks he is doing, and he shouldn't be allowed to interfere. But there are lots of people who share his views about how Derby should be treated. 

The whole thing is a poo show, the fans bear the brunt of it and it demonstrates how broken our regulatory system really is. Tracey Crouch and her cavalry can't arrive soon enough for me. But I think your administrators are guilty of a major error of judgement here which will consume a lot of resources they can't afford, raise hopes that are likely to be dashed and are a huge distraction from the job they should be doing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I don't think we are looking to be treated any different to any one else, in fact we think in some ways we are, but not in a good way. 

we accepted a deducted penalty for being 2 weeks late with the wages and found that it was similar to SWFC who hadn't paid wages  for months.

We were fined by the tribunal for the amortisation (which always had the players contracts as nil at the end). The EFL appealed against that not DCFC.

Mel and Pearce (CEO) should have been more transparent about that with the EFL and then things would have been clearer and quicker. I'm trying to pick my words carefully here, but I can see why people would look at the amortisation the way they do.

We had a mad 2 years where we overspent, the legacy was the residual high wages. Our wage bill has been on the small side for the last couple of years and our debt isn't that big when you look at others. I see figures banded around that are not true £35-40m wages bill, that's rubbish its more like £15m.

The stadium sale (not the first to do that) was accepted by the tribunal and not appealed by the EFL.

Our issue re administration is 2 things we have lost the ability to generate income to satisfy the debts  due to Covid and Mel has said he cannot pay the difference. Will we win the appeal, I would say its no more than 50/50, but as Wigan did we have a right to try. 

Re the amortisation process, most of the time was due to the EFL not us. 

Re P&S/FFP, this is the outcome of the tribunal.  By all accounts we are not over by much (£4-8m), yet we are looking at 9 points + 3 suspended. whereas Reading who are about £50m over are looking at 6 points, BCFC 7 points for being £15m over. SWFC 6 points for larger.

If we have broken the rules and we have, we should be punished but with FFP it needs to be inline with others and it doesn't feel that way. With administration I have 2 feelings, the first is as you put it we are caught fair and square and the other is that there is an appeal system and reasons for having a reduction. We have a case so why not try. The difference could be the staying up and regulation.  

We have 3 things that we have been convicted of. Amortisation, Administration and FFP. We have accepted the penalty for the first. Lets see about the second and third but yes we would like to be treated the same as others.

We might just overturn the 12 points but not anymore.  If we get more than I fear that Derby will play their academy and set up for next year in L1. Unfortunately that would not be good for the EFL.

Lets see 

.

24 minutes ago, Ghost of Clough said:

I can't see it being successful in all seriousness. Two of the main reasons being: us buying players during the period, us not selling players during the period.

Last summer we bought Jozwiak and Byrne for fees. Marshall, te Wierik, Ibe, Kazim all on frees plus Clarke on loan. This summer we signed Allsop, Jagielka, Stearman, Morrison and Baldock. 
We know about rejected multi-million pound bids for Buchanan and Lawrence just days before going into administration. If we were so close to the edge at that point, why didn't we sell?
 

you have not mentioned players going out, Bennett, Whitaker, Bogle, Lowe all for fees. The incoming this year has been free's on minimal wages. the outgoings of Wisdom, Waghorn, Marriott (wages) would be higher.

The wage bill has been dropping for the last few years and did again this year. our outgoings on wages are now small. I think where we are different to some of the others is that we have some commercial debt which has to be paid back. Other clubs only have soft debt (the owner) that they do not.

I think that the question is. Would we have survived (including Mel pulling the plug) if Covid didn't happen. If the answer is yes then we get 12 points, if no then we have a chance. This will be strongly contested by the EFL who no doubt will say without Mel's money before covid we would have been in the ****, so the reason you have failed is Mel is not paying not Covid 

20 hours ago, basilrobbie said:

I do hope that Nixon is wrong about this, for a number of reasons :

1) I don't think you have a hope in hell of winning. Wigan tried this argument and got  short shrift. And there was a much stronger causal link between their problems and COVID than you can argue

2) if you are citing COVID as the primary argument, it's just not true, is it? The decisions that led to your current situation may have been compounded by COVID, but they weren't caused by it

3) this just plays into the "Gibson" argument (for want of a better phrase), that seeks to depict you as a club trying to wriggle off a hook instead of accepting you have been caught fair and square. Whether it is fair or not is a separate issue - it just LOOKS really bad. I can understand that goodwill is not your main worry though

As a Blackpool fan who has a vested interest in all this, I sympathise with those of you who just wants this resolved, along with Reading and anyone else who is in the dock for these sorts of offence. Lots of people outside your fan base feel the same way.

The EFL are supposed to be fighting for their lives at the moment, and trying to make themselves seem relevant in the context of the fan led review.  This dithering, with all the opacity that goes with it, is not fair on any of us. Hopefully, it will be fatal for them, because they long ago forfeited the right to run the competitions they are responsible for.

 

 

I'm not sure if I agree with you here.

Wigan's administration was at the start of Covid (July 2020), so the effects would have been no where near as damaging. On 4 June 2020, the owners sold the majority of Wigan Athletic shareholdings to Hong Kong-based Next Leader Fund, who didn't invest.  Their main issue was the new owners and not Covid. Wigan would have gone into administration even if Covid never happened.

You could argue that Derby were able to service their debts and operating overheads and had been doing so until Covid. This took £20m out of the coffers and Derby (unlike Wigan) had a whole season and a bit in closed stadiums before administration (September 2021).

I do agree that we would have been less likely to go under without the debt, that said our debt is lower than a lot of others clubs such as Reading. Our overheads are also small, wages are probably £15m per season unlike 2-3 years ago. Also our FFP/P&S is not as high as people think it is, Reading (sorry to mention them again) overspent by £10m's more than Derby.    

Gibson's argument is personal, if not why has he not sued half the clubs who were promoted and why didn't we sue QPR when they went up. Nothing will happen with Gibson and his legal challenges.

I don't see what Derby are doing as any different to what anyone else would do, certainly other clubs such as SWFC, BCFC have appealed and had points reduced and Reading are in the process of trying to negotiate a lower deduction. 

People need to have a look at the debt levels of all clubs as well as operating expenses as they seem to think Derby have the biggest debt, biggest FFP overspend and biggest wage bill. Non of that is accurate by a long way.   

39 minutes ago, rammieib said:

Disgaree. The difference between Champ and L1 is about ten million so IF there is money in the budget to appeal, and we think we have a decent case, then we should.

I still don’t think it’ll come to it. EFL won’t want to lose a covid force majeure case - I think we will settle out of the appeals process on all points deductions.

I agree, this is not a scenario that the EFL wants, it is possible we could negotiate a deal. We do have a case based on Covid, might not win it but we could. The EFL need to decide if they can risk losing and the floodgates opening or making a compromise where we accept a number, say 6 (6 suspended) for admin and 9 for FFP. the total would have to be more than the 12 we already have.

lets see as we don't have a lot to go on 

3 hours ago, PistoldPete said:

I don't really understand this story.

 

My understanding is that the 12 point deduction is an all or nothing thing. According to the rules as I understand them, If covid was the most proximate cause of the administraton then the deduction should be zero  points. If it was not then, it should be 12 points. No other ifs or  buts or mitigating factors that could reduce it in half. 

 

Unless .. we are saying .. we haven't got time to fight this through the courts or tribunals, let's do a deal now and get certainty.  

 

Also EFL asking for our books over six years.. haven't they had them already?   

 

 

I’m not sure the relevance of the books going back that far, also don’t they already have them? I would have thought this should be based on the Covid era and perhaps the year before. That way you can see that debts could be paid and then due to Covid they couldn’t. It should be a slam dunk as it obvious that Covid had a major affect on operating capital. The question is was it enough to go broke? I think the fact that other clubs haven’t is a red herring. It’s up to the owners if they want to keep funding to replace lack of operating funds. You cannot expect them to do it and isn’t the purpose of P&S/FFP to stop them doing that.

18 hours ago, loweman2 said:

There was that much interest from the 1884 original shirts as worn by the first Derby County team with people asking if they were available to buy that we decided to find somebody who could make them to the same excellent standard as the tailor who did the first two but at a much reduced cost, the first two cost £170 each to have them made bespokely but I am pleased to say that we have now managed to source a new provider and get them still hand made and embroidered to the same excellent standard but at a much reduced cost.

these shirts represent our rich history and heritage from those early pioneering days of professional football and the creation of the the football league, we were one of those first clubs invited to form it remember.

It’s  not a money making exercise, it is an opportunity to purchase something that can be kept and handed down over the years, it is made from the same thick quality drill cotton with mother of pearl buttons and to the original design, they were like dress shirts and tucked into their trousers, so they haven’t been made as something to wear to the pub or the match, they are all being made in a size large and will be in a presentation clear bag along with a colourised photo of the very first Derby County team, making it an ideal present for any Derby fan, you don’t have to be a shirt collector to own one, as I have posted elsewhere on the forum for many years and most of you know the time and dedication that I put into the history of the Rams and especially the shirts that we have worn since 1884, this is something that I wanted to share, it’s a limited offer and won’t be repeated, the shirts are £100 each, still not cheap but there is a lot of cost involved in the process and then getting them all professionally embroidered.

I put on Twitter yesterday that we had had 12 made and they all sold in a couple of hours, even Peter Seddon the original researcher and writer of the men who made the rams had one.

we just want to gauge interest of who would like to order one so please comment or PM me if you would be interested.

here are the ones that we did originally and the new ones, they are identical and the embroidery started yesterday on them.

I’m up for one of those how do I order and pay

34 minutes ago, Indy said:

I agree totally. I thought that as soon as I saw them add in the “timeframe” criteria which I’d not seen mentioned before. Struck me as a pretty obvious attempt to head off the argument that, having not been found guilty of breaking the rules, we should still be eligible for the funds. Yet another example (along with the embargo) of the efl enacting a punishment based on an accusation and the fact that their procedures delayed everything. 

innocence until proven guilty is not a concept that the EFL recognise. I understand that they want to make sure that clubs survive and behave properly but they need to do something about the appeal process and the time taken as that turns into a penalty itself. 

They also need to do something about soft debt and parachute payments. The reason a number of clubs are not in our position is that their owners absorb the debt without the need to repay where as we have commercial loan payments to make. Parachute payments have made the Championship into a 3 tier league. those that have PL payments, those with large attendances and those that don't. The playing field needs to be a little more level otherwise more clubs will chase the dream and those with parachute payments will struggle to reduce their costs when they lose those payments.

Punishments need to be transparent and consistent. For instance Reading look like getting a similar penalty to us for P&S (FFP) even though their overpayment dwarfs ours. Historically other clubs have had their penalties reduced that also have higher overpayments (Birmingham for instance). I have no issue with QPR, Aston Villa and others but they killed FFP before they were promoted and then received a fine that was meaningless (based on Prem income). They should have had retrospective points deductions or the use of fines should be an option to clubs still in the Championship. 

These are Reading losses

2019/20 was a 43.5 million loss - £30m over
2018/19 was 40.7 million loss- £27m over

That said it is still our (Mel's & Pearce) fault that we are in this situation

2 hours ago, G STAR RAM said:

I guess MMs counter argument would be, would you still be paying your electricity bill on time if you lost your job and had no income?

I think the most annoying thing about this is that MM has said this is all purely down to Covid which lost us £20m income. Well if that's true why is he supposedly leaving us with £60m of debt and not £20m?

he is on about the inability to service the debt due to the loss of operating income (Covid), that said why let the debt get to those figures in the first place 

8 minutes ago, Ghost of Clough said:

It'll be down to us failing P&S in the 17/18 season, which should have meant a points deduction in 18/19 and them finishing 1 place higher (in the playoffs) with a chance of promotion. Boro seeking compensation for missing out on the chance of winning the playoff lottery against significantly better sides.

As you may recall, last season Middlesbrough tried a similar tactic (which simply delayed proceedings). 
A couple of key snippets from that judgement:

In the civil courts and I guess this is where this is going it would be based on the balance of probabilities so they need to prove that it is more likley than not to have affected the run in.

This is not that easy to prove as you would need to factor in things such as other clubs overspending (Aston Villa, Leeds etc) during that period and the possible effect that might have the Derby overspend might have on the number of points obtained.  Also as said that bring in the playoffs is no guarantee of promotion. 

8 hours ago, Foreveram said:

Well that would get us some publicity 

Like we don’t already have it

If we stay up with a 12 point deduction we will have done something no one else has done, any more than that is like giving Usain Bolt a 20 yard head start  and expecting to beat him.

I think we will have a decent stab at the 12 and might do it (injuries are my big worry) but more than that we are in major trouble.

One thing for the EFL to think about is that if we have no hope of staying up then we might as well prepare for L1 and play all of the youngsters and make sure we dont have major injuries. That would seriously affect the outcome of the championship.  

6 hours ago, Sparkle said:

The EFL wanted Derby to get a points deduction - we have 12 currently - job done because without their involvement we wouldn’t  have had the 12 as we would have been sold off and everyone paid and no one made redundant. 

The EFL openly stated they wanted Derby to be relegated - they have severely restricted us recruiting suitability  / properly or even playing some of our own Academy lads - so basically job done.

If the EFL want to punish us further for using our method of amortisation which was perfectly legal and  Rick Parry at the EFL has already said he wants Amortisation taken out of the P&S calculations then the EFL can simply impose a suspended point deduction on that front and they can say it’s finished with and we can move on - they can also give us back the £100,000 fine.

the EFL point of view would be-

- DCFC are in admininistration because the owner didnt want to continue funding the club and because they have significant debt

- the EFL were worries about the clubs ability to pay going forward hence the embargo which enabled them to have less debt

- The P&S penalty is due to not meeting the debt rules and not the £100k fine.  

Lets face it, the only way to overturn 21 points is if there are others that have received significant points deductions 

55 minutes ago, PistoldPete said:

Yes that’s what it says in the rules , which seems very unfair to make it only seven days . Maybe Derby could appeal to a court as force majeure is a legal thing rather than for the Efl to decide. 

its intresting that the EFL would have had a 21 day turn around time , I always thought it was slower than that. 

2 hours ago, WystonRam said:

Hi All, genuine question.

The club is short staffed currently and still cannot open the ticket office for example. Who would volunteer to work to get things open so that for example people could buy tickets from the ticket office ? I have offered to work for free on match day mornings for example, and to get the Ticket office open earlier than 10AM.

Any one else willing ? There must be retired people who could staff in the week?

yes I would

3 hours ago, Crewton said:

Yeah, I made that point in my previous post. 

I'm not really sure what this poster is trying to prove - a £20m hit on the club's income over the past 18 months is entirely plausible and without cash being injected by the owner or from borrowing it would have gone into Administration much earlier. 

agreed, covid had and is having an effect on opertional costs, £20m seems reasonable, thats why I think we could appeal the 12 points for administration and get a possible reduction, if we could turn that and the FFP into 12 points total we  might have a chance.