RammingStone66

3 minutes ago, Kernow said:

So what now? The most logical resolution would seemingly be that CK agrees a leasing deal with MM whilst the council look at buying the ground. CK can then lease it from the council or look to buy it eventually.

But this is made a lot harder when CK says his offer is conditional on MM not owning the stadium, and a deal from the council doesn’t look like going through any time soon.

Who says Mel actually wants to sell it right now?

Everyone seems to assume he is willing to sell it to the council for the amount of the MSD loan but I get the feeling that might not be the case. 

Why sell for 25mil now when you could rent it and earn money off it for years, or rent it out for a few years and once all this has died down try to charge full price for the stadium, maybe even the mythical 80mill.

Its a horrible thing to do but he is a business man and would probably want maximum return

2 minutes ago, Rev said:

Down to about £5m of allowable  losses at the end, probably another couple of million in losses which were disregarded for FFP as it was then.

Think it show just how expensive it is to run a Championship club even without a high earning squad

On 06/05/2022 at 09:15, duncanjwitham said:

Your first problem is that you need to find about 20,000 Derby fans, with £1k spare, during the biggest financial squeeze in recent memory.

Who knows, you might need more. No one knows how much Mel is asking for.

10 minutes ago, Archie said:

If that's the case then I take it back. I thought Clough junior had helped get the operational costs down, got rid of the deadwood/large contracts from the prem days and salaries then were below income. Who was earning 'big' in the season prior to Clough leaving us? 

They did do all of that and we were still losing money, that's the scary thing

Just now, G STAR RAM said:

Sorry but can't have that, we were neither profitable nor sustainable, hence why GSE were not keen to continue funding us.

No arguments with the rest of it though.

Yeah wasn't it losing 7 mill a year at that point?

I get the feeling that this is more about long term wealth for Mel.

Make CK or MA lease it, he gets MSD off his back and then in a few years he can try to sell the stadium for how ever much he feels like. Why take 20mill now when he could take 50mill in a few years and have a bunch of the MSD debt paid off, or maybe just sit on it and keep earning money off it for the next 20 years.

44 minutes ago, Gritstone Ram said:

Why can’t we just rent PP until a deal is sorted or would that be too simple.

I'm guessing he thinks he can rent it for a few years then charge the club whatever he feels to buy the stadium at a later date, maybe even the full and mythical 80mill. Especially if we got back to the PL at any point too

I'm not sure it's possible to really classify any scenario as Optimistic, Realistic or pessimistic when we only have 4 players contracted and no idea of the rest of the squad.

If the EFL hits us the same as Bolton then CK can't pay any fees for players, has a 23 man squad limit and a wage limit of £4500. Hope ours isn't any worse than that, but I think we definitely have to hope that we keep the core of the current squad, and that Rooney and his team are rather good at recruitment.

29 minutes ago, Carl Sagan said:

The word "crypto" is short for encrypted which means "secret". Which means we don't know how much of it people have, as this information is not public. But it becomes ever easier to exchange it for tradition money like pounds or dollars. If you've heard Kirchner has billions of dollars then that's not something I have heard, but it is possible. If in the early days of Bitcoin he'd amassed a hundred thousand or two hundred thousand, that would equate to billions of dollars now.

But it's highly unlikely. We shall find out over time if the sale goes through.

 

You can see how much people have but you need the wallet address to do it.

It's how lots of famous YouTubers who made a (allegedly) Scam Coin got caught. People knew their wallet address and could see that had done a "pump and dump" of this new coin they all promoted. They hyped it up, then sold all their reserves (given to them for free) within 24hrs of the coins release. Making off with like 30mill between them made off impressionable young fans. Luckily every transaction is recorded so hopefully they get their punishment

5 minutes ago, BramcoteRam84 said:

Yeah a bit wide of the mark. 
 

But seriously, the bloke isn’t poor by any stretch and more than has the means to own a football club if he runs it responsibly.

Slync.io raised $76m from series a and series b funding rounds, from what I’ve read a series b funding round of $7m-$10m indicates a company worth of $30-$60m so about 3x-6x the funding amount. Therefore applying the same logic slync.io is worth between $230m-$450m. That’s it’s worth now. They raised $60m from Goldman Sachs, they wouldn’t invest that unless Slync had serious growth potential. That’s before we even get to whatever he has in crypto, property or family wealth. Sure he probably isn’t a billionaire, he may not be worth as much as Mel but he’s probably not that far off.
 

I think we can say he isn’t Erik Alonso Mark 2. 

And he has the potential to be worth a lot more than Mel too. Hopefully Slync grows and so does the club.

4 minutes ago, hintonsboots said:

Doesn’t Mel own the Rivendell sports arena through Tolkien Holdings ?

Just now, PistoldPete said:

Kirchner would not be my PB. I don't buy this "ten years ago" stuff, he will not have changed that much and his tweets last december didnt show any great maturity either. I havent seen anything that should make him "unfit or improper" certainly not by the very low bar that EFL has set for itself. Even so I would prefer pretty much anyone else of the named candidates.

Is Ashley back in again? What did Ed Dawes say?

If this is on morals I'm not sure that horribly exploiting a large group of foreign workers (allegedly) makes MA a saint either ? I worked at his HQ and with MA when he first bought Newcastle. In my opinion the way he treated people was horrific.

Some entitled rich kid said stupid things on twitter 10 years ago, that does not bother me anywhere near as much. 

8 minutes ago, Rambalin said:

He said his businesses are valued at 7 billion it does not mean he has that in cash burning a hole in his pocket. Similar to Mel who is worth 500 million when you added up all his interests and property 

True but it does usually give you the chance to borrow lots of liquid cash that he can use

4 minutes ago, I am Ram said:

Q have said somebody is delaying and trying to undermine the process, what are folks thoughts on this, I'm trying to catch up. 

Sounded like a shot at MA to me. It's seems to be he is just biding his time waiting for it to collapse or for people to get desperate so he can swoop in.

Him not playing ball with the timelines etc is very much his style as I worked close to him about a decade ago and he is truly ruthless. 

1 hour ago, Van der MoodHoover said:

Sadly, the guys who have the deepest pockets often have the shortest arms. 

 

Weren't GSE backed by guys with gazillions who rarely stumped up for much? 

Very true and also what do deep pockets matter when the EFL is probably going to have seriously hard restrictions on what we can spend and I wouldn't be surprised if they had us on that for 2-3 seasons to "protect the club" ?

There are people out there who still think we have got off lightly in all this lol, ridiculous but true.

8 minutes ago, alexxxxx said:

I think we are done sadly, and I feel that I'm starting to accept this eventuality. 

I suspect we'll still be a club by next season in league 1, with some ancient players on 6month contracts, but doubt we'll make Christmas and fold.

If that happens then all blame is on Mel for me. He has the ability to save this club by giving the stadium back etc. If he refuses to do what's needed then the club's death is totally on his head

2 minutes ago, WestKentRam said:

On the long drive home post match with @South east ram today, after discussing the current situation ad infinitum as standard, he came up with the following theory that made me even more depressed.

What if liquidation has actually been decided on and we are just playing out the end of the season to finish it off to its natural conclusion and bring in the most money for the creditors? With no stadium, huge outstanding debts, almost certain relegation, a -15 points deduction to start next season with in L1 with a squad of 5 players, no-one is going to pay over the odds for this.

The remaining players we have who can be released are being sold, such as Plange and Festy. The club plays the remaining games of this season to bring in match day income that can eventually go to the creditors. And that is it. 

There will be the usual statements to say they tried hard to sell the club but with all the complicating factors it could not attract bids that would satisfy the various creditors, and we will be left shell shocked wondering how it all came to this.

I desperately hope he is wrong, but unless Mel decides to gift the stadium or personally settle the debts, or a buyer pays these off and spends a lot more buying Derby than they could get another Championship club for, I do fear that perhaps we are already in the end game without realising it.

 

My god I hope you are wrong, but I wouldn't be surprised if you were right unfortunately.

I must say that this wait isn't helping anyone and just increasing any anger felt towards Q and any potential new owners.

If this drags on untill after the end of the season and most of our team and youth walk out the door for £0 and we forced to find potentially 30+ players in a very short window. That creates a level of chaos that's hard for any club to deal with, imagine being 3 months late planning pre season then having to do it while trying to find and buy 30+ players under a strict budget and EFL oversight.

Then there is the probable 15 point penalty......I remember reading that no one in league history has survived a 12 point penalty never mind 15 or 21 points. So surviving 15 would still be a miracle season.

Any new owner who is ok with allowing the club to fall apart to the point that even surviving in league 1 could be very very difficult is not the ideal person I'd want for the club. I know we can't be choosy and at least having DCFC is better than oblivion but it's hard to swallow how bad of a position we could be in if this drags on.

I hope that it can be done and the youth can be retained and we can build up from them. 

46 minutes ago, Macintosh said:

If you're going to forget all the play-off matches, going to Wembley, breaking the transfer record to bring in Vydra, some wonderful loans and players singed, a youth system bearing fruit and sacking managers because so many fans here said so. Then forget those times, his fortune thrown at this club to chase that dream. But be happy with any new owner and any lack of ambition that may likely follow.

No much point in the youth system bearing fruit when at this rate we will have lost just about every decent player in the system to other teams or to not being able to actually sign them to contracts.

What a brilliant tactic by Mel, sink loads into the academy and when it actually produces put us in admin forcing the best players to be sold for peanuts or leave because we can't sign them ?. Also the expense of the academy is probably hurting us financially at the moment.

I mean thank god there were so many gems in the academy to help this season but I'm worried what will be left of it by the time this is over and I'd be surprised if any new owner would want to fund it as well as Mel did.

But I'm not sure how Mel spending lots of money absolves anything he did in this situation. 

Just now, atherstoneram said:

But who says any new owner will want to continue with the academy in it's current form especially if we finish up in L1.

Exactly. The academy is very costly and we know Mike likes to run a club at a profit

7 hours ago, The Scarlet Pimpernel said:

This has the feel of a Mike Ashley purchase at the eleventh hour. The bid is likely to be just enough to pay creditors enough to avoid a 15 point deduction next season whilst slashing Mel's £20m wish. All about timing. 

NOT ITK

I agree, though I'm not sure on the paying just enough to avoid the penalty. Having worked around the guy at the time he bought Newcastle and seeing how ruthless he was back then. I wouldn't be surprised if he took the deduction to save money and get the club for as little as possible. From what I saw, Mike likes to know he has won, and he likes you to know he has won too.

I hope I'm wrong as any owner willing to take deduction and run us to near extinction just to save some cash is not a person I'd want running the club.....but I guess we can't be choosy and the "fan" that bought the club last time hasn't done us much good in the long run either lol

3 minutes ago, atherstoneram said:

Too true, they are not bothered about the integrity of the club,to them it's just a business that they hope to pick up on the cheap and nothing to do with football.

Yeah it feels like all the "bidders" are quite happy for us to take the hit. We are just a business......

11 minutes ago, Curtains said:

You haven’t offended me but I can’t speak for others .

 

Alan Nixon makes a good point on reflection 

“They are already in enough bother already as things stand – but the fact they will manage to get through until the end of the season is a plus, before assessing whether they can hold on and wait until the transfer window opens to sell some of their key assets if a preferred bidder isn’t in place by then.”

https://footballleagueworld.co.uk/journalist-makes-key-claim-involving-derby-county-and-mike-ashley-after-binnie-family-rejection/

What key assets do we have to sell? Don't we have like 4 players under contract who would be sold for pittance. Maybe get us 1-2 more months but then we have literally no players to field a squad. Would the EFL have to grant us special dispensation to sign up to 23 players of professional standing again? And I assume on a wage too low to attract a team remotely capable of survival in league 1 or the champ.

1 hour ago, RealisticRam said:

Will never be a Rooney fan. Thanks for the effort and all but regardless of the result at the end of the season, new manager needed I think for 2022/23. 

I'd love to see who you think is equipped to go out to find and galvanize potentially 30+ new players while under a strict wage structure and probably dropping a league.

Whether you like the guy or not, the job he and his team has done keeping the squad together and fighting is quite amazing. It would of been easy to just collapse, not fight and have a awful season where the players wanted out

10 minutes ago, Tamworthram said:

I don’t think there is any guarantee a Phoenix club would be allowed to start in league 2

I know, I did mention that I'm not sure if it's true but maybe Ashley thinks he can swing it. His ruthlessness and ability to not care a jot what anyone including fans think of him is quite incredible.

But paying 20+ mil for a club with 6 players on the books, no stadium, that's probably dropping a league, will probably get a 15 point deduction in that league and be forced to work under another embargo or very strict business plan seems like a bad investment. Our history means mostly nothing to anyone that's not a fan. I mean just YouTube us and just about everyone under 35 just knows us as the worst prem team ever. A phoenix club if it started in league 2 would still attract good attendances for that league and over time could build back. Everyone loves a winner they say lol.

I hope to whatever footballing gods there are that I am wrong and I am just freaking myself out after another day of disapointing news, I just find it hard trust anyone involved in this admin process at all, no matter what side they are on.