PistoldPete

12 minutes ago, AndyinLiverpool said:

Why is it important that other people know about DCFC?

Hopefully some multi billionaires will have heard of us.

2 minutes ago, kevinhectoring said:

If MM had sacked all of them he might have won. Just sacking Keogh was always going to be v risky. Smacked of convenience 

But that isn't the point. They were all guilty of misconduct so the club were entitled to sack them all.. and also entitled to make a commercial decision to keep them all, notwithstanding their conduct.. which they did but in Keogh's case that meant reduced terms which he refused. 

The proper legal test is whether the conduct was bad enough to warrant dismissal.. and for professional footballers to go out and get drunk and break the law I would say in all cases yes it was . 

The "optics" as the Guardian rather unfortunately puts it are irrelevant. The optics for Keogh was that he was club captain on a team bonding session.. saying he didn't know Lawrence had been drinking is just pure tosh. You spent the evening on a team bonding session and you are leaving a pub and in any case as I say he was club captain, it his job to watch over players.

26 minutes ago, Sparkle said:

It wasn’t proved in a court of law if it was then a maximum of £80,000 would have been awarded 

it was found proven in a EFL hearing - so apparent football rules - I bet everyone who has just been made redundant wishes they had football rules as well 

Exactly. If it had gone to an employment tribunal he would have lost. And the reasons for the decision would have been published.

9 hours ago, Crewton said:

So we don't owe them the headline figure of £8m, unless the EFL are planning to automatically promote us to make up for treating us like dirt for 2 years. 

More journalistic hyperbole from the Forest fan. 

Well you would think a journalist would question how, if the fee was truly £10 million, the agreed instalments were only £2million after two years. So Arsenal agreed to us to pay £1 miilion a year for 10 years? I don't think so. Does it not occur to the journo that maybe the fee isn't £10 million unless Derby get into the Prem and Poland win the world cup with Bielik as captain?

4 minutes ago, rammieib said:

You don't think journalists would cover a full story do You? 

Especially journalists who are Forest fans writing about Derby. 

13 minutes ago, Rambalin said:

A story that you could write about every club who have signed players for a fee the only different is we are now in administration so it become a slightly bigger story.

Any new owners will be perfectly aware they will pick up those instalments so it really is not a issue unless we are not taken over.

How much do Sheff U owe us for Bogle and Lowe? And don't get me started on Gordon and Delap. 

1 hour ago, Sparkle said:

The EFL had it in one of its press releases 

They wanted a points deduction for us last season , which would have relegated us and even when the IDC said no they actually published an alternative fixtures list for this year... until their lawyers and even a few journos told them not to be so silly.

But its hard to see EFL not getting their way this time.

5 minutes ago, Crewton said:

Bits of him have a habit of "going" in January anyway. 

Did we, seriously, agree to pay £10m for an Arsenal reserve (good though he is)? 

Christ, I thought that was hype. 

Premier League reserves are very expensive. Sancho cost £80 million and I don't think he is worth a place in the Man U team. 

4 minutes ago, DJAY said:

Based on the appeal that Wigan tried a while back, I doubt an appeal against the 12 points would be successful. Wigan's appeal was dismissed on the following grounds:

“First, we are satisfied on the evidence we have seen that the Insolvency Event arose because Mr Kay, the effective owner, made a commercial decision to choose to go back on promises of continued support and stopped putting money into the Club. That cannot be regarded as a ‘Force Majeure’ event.".

That's basically what happened to us....Mel decided to stop putting money in each month, forcing us into an insolvency event.

 

 

The difference though is the Wigan owner stopped providing financial support a few days after he took over. Mel ran out of money after several years. Would he have done so if not for covid? That is the question, but Mel was very clear that its 100% about covid. 

On 16/06/2021 at 18:59, Leeds Ram said:

He was the youngest player ever to be capped by wales at the time. It's hardly the case Knight is keeping out world beaters to get into Ireland's squad. atm either You're entitled to your view, I don't see any evidence of these lads being any better than those such as Addison or Nyatanga as of yet. I hope I'm wrong and they turn out to be very good players but I'm not seeing the qualities that people are hyping about. 

You are wrong. Knight, Bird, Buchanan and Sibley will play at Championship level or above for many years to come… if they drop a division it will only be because they stay with us after we are relegated .

Our best years were when we got to play off final in 2014 and then in 2019. Both times academy players were part of the success model .. Hughes and Hendrick in 2014 and bogle and Bennett in 2019 , plus tapping into Chelsea academy with mount and tomori. Loan players also played a part in 2014 with Thorne , Bamford and Wisdom. 
 

in 2014 we also had some shrewd signings by clough … Martin, fozzy, Bryson, and yes even keogh although that season ended badly for him. 
 

It nearly worked. Far too much slagging off of Derby’s efforts in the media over the last two weeks . 

49 minutes ago, Ghost of Clough said:

https://www.efl.com/-more/governance/efl-rules--regulations/section-3---the-league/

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. 

49 minutes ago, Ghost of Clough said:

The deadline for any appeal has already passed. Given we haven't heard anything about it, I would guess that the administrators have chosen not to appeal.

Really? That seems a very short deadline  and I am rather surprised that we wouldn’t appeal. 

2 minutes ago, Bald Eagle's Barmy Army said:

We aren’t going into liquidation, Garry Cook is taking over with his American backers and we will be just like Citeh in 10 years time. 

Liquidation is unthinkable I agree. Not sure about the rest of your prediction. 

1 hour ago, StarterForTen said:

I may be wrong, but I don't think any league would consider membership for a new club that is in administration, so its as good as being liquidated in terms of HMRC (and other creditors) getting any value for their debt

Yes if the club is banished from the League and in administration, Like Bury well prospects would not look good for creditors . So better to reach an agreement and then HMRC can continue to collect taxes based on what are in Derby’s case still considerable revenues.

1 hour ago, Ghost of Clough said:

In previous P&S cases, the P&S position of Birmingham and Sheff Weds was reset - so allowable losses were treated as £13m in the failed seasons. What I'm not sure about is whether seasons where a lower loss (or even a profit) was posted, if that was also reset to £13m. Seems harsh if so.

How the points deductions should work out based on my calcs...

3 years to 2018 - £3.6m overspend = 4 points
15/16, 16/17, 17/18 allowable losses reset to £13m if previously higher (17/18 losses were lower)

3 years to 2019  - £3.8m overspend = 4 points
18/19 allowable losses reset to £13m

3 years to 2020 - £2.3m profit = 0 points

3 years to 2021 - £6m profit = 0 points

8 points penalty is therefore the starting point. Based on the DC reports, it would now be difficult to say there are aggravating factors. Potential mitigating factors such as acting on the belief we were working to an acceptable amortisation policy. 5 points with 3 suspended would be a reasonable conclusion in my opinion.

 

Is it possible to recover 21 points? Doesn't matter... it'll be less.

Sheff Wed got 6 points deducted for selling the stadium (mitigating factor). So we shouldn't be getting any penalty according to that. 

19 minutes ago, 86 Hair Islands said:

Herculean effort required but the lads are clearly starting to gel nicely and Wazza is getting more right than wrong and doing so playing attractive football too. It's us against the world it seems and apparently that rather suits us.

A simple but marginally more science-based evaluation suggests that 13 points from 10 games would give us a pre-deduction total of 60 points, a net 39. The current 26th place team, using the same basic formula, would secure only 37. A walk in the park then...

Chuck into the mix that we have a few good'uns only just back and Bielik, CKR and Festy still to come; an improving coach, an identifiable and improving playing style, near fanatical support on game days, an increasing likelihood of new ownership and the possibility of fresh blood in January and it doesn't seem wildly far-fetched.

Allied to this, the division looks some way off vintage this year and with other sides likely to be docked points too, it may be that we really could less survive with less than 40 points. A win and a clean sheet against Swansea and we'll have some real momentum.

Anyway, about time we had a play-offs thread, isn't it!  ?

Well if you want to be really positive , how about the last four games? 7 points from those, all teams who will be expecting to be near the top (apart from Reading maybe due to points deductions) . That's  80 points at the end of the season.. play off places form indeed, if not automatic!

10 minutes ago, kevinhectoring said:

The admins said that HMRC has first claim against floating charge assets. In other words, they rank behind MSD’s charge on fixed assets. They also rank behind administrators costs, which I think includes any debt the admins raise to fund us until sale 

As I understand it, the reason HMRC agrees to a haircut is this:

the club only survives as a going concern if 25% of unsecured creditor claims are repaid and if all football creditors are paid. So the admins will show HMRC sale scenarios with indicative sales prices. These will show that if HMRC and unsecured creditors do not agree a deal then the EFL requirement for continued EFL membership will not be met which will mean the club goes into insolvent liquidation. In other words if HMRC does not compromise, it could get nothing because the club would be history. 

 

Technically, even if we fail to meet the EFL criteria for satisfying creditors that doesn't mean liquidation. We may be banished from the League however. That was Bury's fate. But Bury has not been liquidated , it is still in administration and they are still hoping to re-emerge without becoming insolvent.  

1 hour ago, Crewton said:

"Fans have been back in grounds for nearly a year now" 

You used this "fact", and the club's subscription service, to suggest that the club's loss of revenue was short-lived when, in reality, its income has been significantly diminished since the first lockdown and hasn't recovered to its pre-pandemic level even now. 

We'll see in due course how other clubs have been affected, but I'll be amazed if most of the non-parachute payment clubs aren't carrying far more debt than they were 18 months ago, be that "soft" debt or the more problematic kind. 

The fact they were still playing matches meant the players still had to be paid their wages. So the losses just grew with no revenue from crowds , corporate hospitality etc.

1 hour ago, rammieib said:

If anyone thinks our wage bill is still around 30m you’re in cloud cuckoo land

True , but oddly its the same keyboard warriors who say we are spending £30m per annum in wages who say we owed shed loads of money to HMRC before the pandemic.. yet if we are paying that amount in wages our debt to HMRC would have grown massively over the last 18 months.

1 hour ago, atherstoneram said:

It wasn't the EFL giving the loan,it was the finance company and i haven't seen anywhere the EFL has said it's because we have broke the rules, that is what the club is alleged to have said.If it was the EFL issuing the loan they wouldn't have sought the interests of an outside party.

https://www.efl.com/news/2021/september/efl-statement-Derby-county2/

As with any loan the club would have to provide financial details to MetLife who would carry out a financial risk assessment before releasing the funds,perhaps the club were deemed as a bad risk financial wise and that is what as meant as being unable to meet the required eligibility

That statement was , like most EFL statements concerning Derby disingenuos (at best) in the extreme.

Deatls of the conditions are given in this article

https://www.sportspromedia.com/news/premier-league-efl-agree-rescue-package/

"Clubs in breach or suspected to be in breach of EFL regulations will not be able to access the loan facility and any club receiving a loan must maintain compliance with EFL regulations."

So as Derby were at the time in suspected breach, they were not eligible for that reason .. a detail the EFL conveniently omit to give in their press statement.

3 minutes ago, Rev said:

Maybe a fair outcome would be to pay what we owed before Covid in full, and a percentage of pandemic related losses to be negotiated.

A fair outcome will be to pay what we can afford to pay to HMRc and then come out of administration under a new owner so that we can continue to pay HMRC going forward.

2 hours ago, Eddie said:

Remember his debut at Derby, when one person suggested that they had finally seen a worse defender than Clod?

Was that the Leeds game 4-1 defeat I recall? It wasn't his best to be fair, but still way better than Clod.

3 hours ago, Carl Sagan said:

Derby vs Bournemouth is now Sunday 21st November at midday (instead of Saturday 20th at 3pm) and live on Sky.

Fulham vs Derby is now Wednesday 24 November (instead of Tuesday) because of the Bournemouth Sunday kickoff.

Derby vs QPR is now Monday 29 November at 7.45 pm (instead of Saturday 27th at 3pm) and live on Sky.

 

Thats a tough run of games without the curse of Sky to add to it.

33 minutes ago, jono said:

Sorry .. perhaps I misunderstood. I thought you were suggesting that somehow it was the governments “fault” that Derby ran up such a debt and as a taxpayers we should moan about it with a certain political angle directed at the govt  ? 
 

This situation is unique and way beyond what any govt could predict .. a lot of poo happened in the last 2 years and it is most definitely not as a result of party politics.  We got our feet soaked and frozen by the pandemic .. sure, we were wearing flip flops on an outward bound event, which wasn’t a wise choice of footwear but all the same …….. 

It isn't a question of it being the Government's fault necessarily, (although many do not agree with lockdowns at all).   But where the Government demands that businesses close down in the wider interests of public health , it is reasonable to expect either compensation from the Government, or some considerable leeway given to tax liabilities for people and businesses that suffer the financial consequences of those closures.

Contrast this with Glasgow Rangers, who were wound up by HMRC due to unpaid tax. That wasnt  due to the PAYE tax owing due to lost revenues during a  pandemic but was due to  massive amounts swerved due to dodgy Employee Benefit Trusts. HMRC rightly had no sympathy there. Derby's case is very different though.