CornwallRam

1 hour ago, Brammie Steve said:

I honestly can't see Wayne being tempted away from the Rams by a glamour club like Stoke City!

He is doing his managerial cred no harm by remaining loyal to DCFC  and showing coolness under fire!

Money is clearly not a major factor as he did not show serious interest in managing a club like Everton as a fledgling manager.

Rooney Rooney IN IN IN!

He'll be leading Everton's promotion bid next season. 

Derby Telegraph reporting that we'll get compensation for him. I thought the rule was that you only got compensation for U24 players if you had offered them a contract of equal or greater terms. Given that we can't offer any contracts, I'm surprised that we get anything. 

That is a stupid statement. 

If they can name a preferred bidder on Friday, brilliant. So why wouldn't they just say negotiations are ongoing and then make a big announcement on Friday?

If there's no announcement on Friday, the last bit of credibility they have left will be gone and the understandable doom fest will be unstoppable. 

1 hour ago, RAM1966 said:

Why would they, the bids coming in are fair, Morris needs to just throw the ground in and clear the debts to MSD.....

Mel has to do the right thing.

If Mel paid off the loan and gifted the stadium back to the club, I wonder if HMRC would argue that the new owners have an £81m asset, so can borrow against it to settle the HMRC bill in full?

25 minutes ago, rammieib said:

Say we do go down the liquidation route, I’m not actually sure there is any money for the auditors. Five players we could sell but MSD would get a big chunk of that money.

Also - why would MSD put yet another Loan in if they didn’t think there was a good chance of the club being purchased?

I still think we will get bought but I can’t for the life of me think why any owner not coming in now to allow contracts to be sorted, season tickets sold, secure the staffs future and not start with minus 15, isn’t a good business strategy.

Unfortunately, I believe that there would be money to pay the administrators.

I've read numerous times that Mel has given his personal guarantees to MSD. The club going in administration was a default on the charge, so MSD could have repossessed the stadium. I believe that they didn't because Mel has given a guarantee. 

Then there's the football creditors, who in the event of liquidation just become unsecured creditors. The EFL would sell the player registrations and have retained our TV money, so most of the football creditors would get paid anyway.

Quantuma would be able to sell all the remaining assets, cars, desks, computers, merchandise, catering equipment etc. But what would get them their main fee is selling on the name and the badge. Consequently, I believe that liquidation only works for Quantuma if it's part of the setting up of a Pheonix club.

1 hour ago, Carl Sagan said:

In the previous 1073 pages this may have been covered, but why don't the administrators simply give a final deadline for bidders (a sort of sealed bids scenario) and then take the highest, name them as the preferred bidder and proceed with the sale?

Because we can't exit administration without either a CVA or a court order. If none of the bids are high enough to achieve one or the other, they are not viable. If the bids are not viable, Quantuma will not get paid. They will, however get paid in the event of liquidation. 

There is also the matter of the MSD charge over the club, which then links everything to the stadium and Mel Morris. It's possible that no bid can be accepted without the agreement of those two parties. 

7 minutes ago, Rev said:

I'm sorry, my knowledge is a little shaky. 

What is Parkinson's law?

It means that we will end up being savaged by Emu.

What are protests going to achieve? Is Mike Ashley going to suddenly feel guilty and table a workable bid? Is Andy Appleby going to be inspired to find that extra $20m down the back of his sofa?

The march did a brilliant job of getting our plight into the headlines. Our attendances have helped keeping the revenue flowing and the atmosphere at games has shown our togetherness as a club. 

IMO, we need positivity, not protest. We need to attract a buyer, not show them how unpleasant we can be.

9 minutes ago, B4ev6is said:

David does a great job

He's definitely the best owner that DCFCFans has ever had.

I do think that the EFL need to look at their insolvency practices. It was widely felt that Leicester 'cheated' by going into administration, wiped out 75% of debts and carried on as before under very similar ownership. Understandably, the EFL brought in new rules to make administration a far less attractive option.

The points deductions, the imposed business plans, the withheld TV money and varying degrees of transfer embargo now ensure that no club can do a Leicester without suffering significant damage. That's supposed to be a deterrent to owners. Indeed, I suspect that, that deterrent has worked very well - clubs only go into administration now out of desperation. 

That's a problem though. The deterrent then squeezes the life out of a club who are already in trouble. The last few clubs have just about survived, with the exception of poor Bury. The difference is now though, HMRC have far more say and can't just be forced to settle for 25%. 

It is actually possible that this has made exiting administration next to impossible, given how damaging the EFL sanctions already are. 

Frustratingly, those deterrents don't actually hurt the guilty parties, the former owners, just the creditors, the fans and the perspective new owners.

I think people have the wrong idea about the phoenix club option. 

It won't be fan owned or fan instituted. There won't be different versions - they would be rival new clubs.

What will happen is The Derby County Football Club Ltd will go into liquidation. The new owner will buy the name 'Derby County Football Club' and all the associated trade marks and rights. They will then be owned by a new company who will run a team which will be called Derby County Football Club, have the same badge and be indistinguishable from the existing club. The new club will be entirely free of all the liabilities of the old.

The new owners will have to negotiate a league to play in and a stadium and training ground to use. The noises indicate League 2 is the most likely league. It would be surprising if some deal couldn't be stuck for Moor Farm and Pride Park.

Then there's the small matter of needing a squad. All the existing players would have been either released or had their registrations sold by the EFL to pay off the footballing debts. I suspect a few of the released players would sign for the Phoenix club, but we'd still need 95% of a new squad.

It would still be Derby County in sight, sound and feel though. The interesting question is, would we still count as founder members of the league? Do Accrington Stanley? I think we would if we told everyone we were. 

COYR

6 minutes ago, Ram1988 said:

If this is going to be the case we need to know so we can start working on a phoenix club in time for next season.

I do think this is crucial. I think dropping in to League 2 with a committed new owner and 18k gates could actually be preferable to a League 1 relegation struggle with fans drifting away.

The danger is, imo, missing a season. Then it would so much harder to get into League 2 as the gap would have been filled. For many fans the habit would be broken and they wouldn't come back. Also, the new club would feel less like Derby County with a year long break.

24 minutes ago, GenBr said:

 

Are you two seriously comparing Derby County and Chelseas attractiveness to investors? Chelsea have half a billion in revenue every year, a globally recognised brand, they win trophirs and have many valuable assets ( including several players worth more than our entire club).

On the other hand we dont own the stadium, we dont own the training ground,we'll have about 6 players worth close to nothing at the end of the season, a very regional brand and we're lucky if our yearly revenue breaches £30 mill (and it wont get close if we're relegated).

Why is it a surprise that chelseas sale process is faster?

There is an interesting question there though. If someone 'bought' Derby County for £50m and then spent £1bn building the club up, how would the result compare with spending £2bn on Chelsea?

Other than the early 70s, Chelsea were probably slightly bigger than Derby before the Russian money poured in, but there wasn't much in it. I wonder whether DCFC has a ceiling 'size' which Chelsea has long surpassed or could Derby (or any club) be that big with billions being spent?

I wonder what's happened to Festy?

A few weeks ago, his game was very simple. He got the ball and charged forward with it, using blinding acceleration and his considerable upper body strength to beat players. He had a neat trick of actually stopping and standing with the ball, waiting for the opposition player to get close and then suddenly turning on the afterburners to leave his opponent scratching his head 10 yards behind. He didn't always make the best decisions at the end of his runs, but he was a constant threat and gained us yards every time he got the ball. 

He had a hamstring injury a few weeks ago and has looked a shadow of the player he was. He now stops every time, but doesn't seem to have the explosive acceleration to get away. He rarely runs with the ball and then only beats one player and checks back, looking for a pass. He's nowhere near as effective, although he does look a bit more conventional. 

I can't work out if he's still carrying an injury, had his old style coached out of him or the opposition have better worked out how to contain him.

'We're winning away' ?

Blackburn defending like us

OK, who is the red button commentator?

Just had a ridiculous thought.

If HMRC will only settle for 100%, it's possible that administration will increase our debts. The only decrease will come from compromising the unsecured creditors. I believe that is about £8m. Which means @25% we save £6m.

If Quantuma charge more than £6m, administration would actually cost us more than it saves.

Typical isn't it, Dirty Leeds wipe out a fortune in debt and come back stronger. Leicester based their re-birth on walking away from tens of millions of debts. We even make a mess of administration and end up worse off. 

1 hour ago, Tyler Durden said:

Should play at Meadow Lane, much bigger capacity.

And far closer for me ?

That looks like the best option at first sight, but actually isn't possible. Forest and County don't usually play on the same day for safety and policing issues. That would mean Derby and Forest home games on the same day 50 metres away from each other...what could possibly go wrong?

5 minutes ago, atherstoneram said:

But if we take a hit with a -15 point deduction we aren't allowed to set the appropriate wage budgets,we still remain under severe constraints with the EFL.

I've just realised that there's potentially another loophole here - or maybe I've just missed something.

The -15 is for exiting administration in a way that does not comply with EFL policy. Obviously there's the 25/35% creditor part, but another section of that policy is agreeing to the two year business plan.

Logically then, if we exit contrary to EFL policy, we won't have agreed a business plan, but will have tacitly agreed to take the 15 point hit. I've not read of any additional sanctions, so we would have avoided the business plan.

In the unlikely event that I'm right, it could easily make taking points penalty a more attractive option, assuming that the new owner is wealthy enough to deliver a competitive League 1 squad - and saving a few million could only help with that.

15 minutes ago, atherstoneram said:

I think you could well be right,if we get a new owner who is prepared to take the -15 point hit for next year to save money then we will be restricted as to what we could offer money wise in the way of new contracts so they may well get better offers elsewhere anyway. Their agents could have been been busy these last couple of months.

I'm starting to think that the EFL business plan is more of an issue than the 15 points.

Unless we are liquidated, we will be in League 1 next season. The 15 points would stop us making a push for promotion next season. However, two seasons of wage caps, soft embargoes having every decision signed off by Parry and Co would effectively stop us challenging for promotion for two seasons.

In that context, Ashley may as well save a his £15m and take the 15 points.

31 minutes ago, IslandExile said:

All this talk of a phoenix club starting in League 2 if we're liquidated.

It's nonsense.

It came from a single post a few weeks ago.

A phoenix club would not be joining the EFL, probably not even the National League or the level below that.

The guidelines suggest starting three divisions lower. We should restart in the Conference, but it's up for negotiation. 

17 minutes ago, Gaspode said:

If it's going to happen, I hope it's about a month before the end of the season - only fair that we completely screw the EFL by destroying their league in the same way they've screwed our club.....

I think I read somewhere that it would have to happen by mid-March to be able to join a league for the following season. If that's true, it would have to happen next week, or we'd miss a season. 

Part of me would love the chaos that the EFL would have to deal with if it did happen next week. I'd also think it that missing a season would be very tricky as there wouldn't be a gap in the pyramid. Our gates would also really suffer as many would have gotten out of the habit of dedicating so much time, energy and money to football.

13 minutes ago, Foreveram said:

I think I prefer staying up this year and promotion next year.

I'd prefer to get a time machine, go back to Wembley in 2014 and warn one of midfielders to track Zamora as the defence were about to mess things up.

Sadly, that's very unlikely to happen either.

3 hours ago, TheresOnlyWanChope said:

This situation is probably more likely than anyone accepting a minus 15 point start in league 1 and a smaller offer- with no squad anyway there would need to be bigger investment however I don’t think Derby would start again that high up (league 2) would be surprised. Also, would Mike Ashley want to be in charge of a league 2 club?

I don’t think anything will happen unless Mel Morris a accepts a hit on the stadium. I doubt Quantuma have actually received a good enough bid yet. 

I do wonder if bidders actually see a pheonix in L2 as a cheaper and quicker vehicle to the Premier League than a L1 club with ongoing liabilities, a 15 point penalty and an EFL enforced business plan.

I can't help thinking that Derby County with Ashley's money would likely get successive promotions if he was able to extricate the club from the EFL'S restrictions. 

I can also see the EFL seeing it as a show of strength - Derby County tried to cheat and look what happened. Also Derby County going bust could be used by politicians as a level for change.

It seems to me, that liquidation and re-birth could be in a lot of people's interests and might even be good for us fans...although not so much for the creditors.