FlyBritishMidland

It’s been an interesting week.  Our club has had a few sliding doors moments in the past (Sir Brian leaving, Charlie George’s shoulder, Zamora, etc) but looking back how important were the injuries to John Eustace and Chris Martin in 2014/15?  Without those we would arguably have achieved automatic promotion, Mel would have bought a PL team, no FFP issues even if we’d have come down.
Even Thorne’s injury against Ipswich on the last day of the following season.  Again, without that the big spending may have paid off.
Instead we’re staring at League 1 - which could turn out to be a good thing in the long run although it might not feel like it now.
Life’s all about fine margins.  In years to come we’ll have sliding doors moments that go in our favour.

It’s been an interesting week.  Our club has had a few sliding doors moments in the past (Sir Brian leaving, Charlie George’s shoulder, Zamora, etc) but looking back how important were the injuries to John Eustace and Chris Martin in 2014/15?  Without those we would arguably have achieved automatic promotion, Mel would have bought a PL team, no FFP issues even if we’d have come down.
Even Thorne’s injury against Ipswich on the last day of the following season.  Again, without that the big spending may have paid off.
Instead we’re staring at League 1 - which could turn out to be a good thing in the long run although it might not feel like it now.
Life’s all about fine margins.  In years to come we’ll have sliding doors moments that go in our favour.

I went to the Ipswich game where Martin scored the winner. Thought promotion was pretty much nailed on after that. Turned out to be Eustace’s last game (I think?), and the wheels duly fell off one by one. 
 
I know a lot of our problems have been of our own making but does feel we’re due some luck. 

It’s been an interesting week.  Our club has had a few sliding doors moments in the past (Sir Brian leaving, Charlie George’s shoulder, Zamora, etc) but looking back how important were the injuries to John Eustace and Chris Martin in 2014/15?  Without those we would arguably have achieved automatic promotion, Mel would have bought a PL team, no FFP issues even if we’d have come down.
Even Thorne’s injury against Ipswich on the last day of the following season.  Again, without that the big spending may have paid off.
Instead we’re staring at League 1 - which could turn out to be a good thing in the long run although it might not feel like it now.
Life’s all about fine margins.  In years to come we’ll have sliding doors moments that go in our favour.

Hoping the small number of naysayers will cut CK some slack now. The fact that he's looking to press ahead despite recent events really ought to be heartening and he does seem a genuine guy who is in it for the long-haul. We all need to rally around him and make the guy feel welcome if he does put up as seems very likely. 
COYR

LAP decision was final. Derby method was non-compliant, but didn't stop us trying to use a different non-linear method... which we tried but still pulled up on. Now we're forced to use a linear method as we've agreed to it.
I would say harsh based on how we arrived at this point, but fair based on what the excessive losses are.. we also would have excessive losses under the old method anyway.

IF we can ignore the semantics around the phrase bad faith for a moment the question for me is why did we make an intentional decision to apply a method of amortisation of players values which was at total variance to the majority of the other clubs in our division.
And the answer isn't because the EFL said we could - taking one step back why did we seek to apply a different accounting method if it wasn't to lever some kind of advantage over our peers.

It's frustrating but I don't really think we had a leg to stand on. Mel used that amortisation policy to get around FFP, he sold the ground to get around FFP. Let's face it he has run the club into the ground.

Well we lost about £136m between 14/15 and 20/21 whereas Reading lost £57.8m between 17/18 and 20/21.
We failed three periods by a total of £21.5m. They failed 1 period by £18.8m.
I think I said yesterday that we should have had 21 points deducted. They should have had 12 points. Both have basically had that punishment halved.

That’s not the sample that shows whether the straight line basis makes sense. The sample you should ask for is how many players are above the straight line, and by how much. And how many are below. If it largely balances out, then that’s justification for the policy. 

I should also say - as someone who has been pretty vocal in attributing a fair bit of blame to our previous owners - I don't think the EFL has covered itself in glory. The whole system stinks: football basically doesn't work, financially, outside the Premiership. There's a complete disconnect between the Prem and the rest of football. And rather than any kind of benevolent independent oversight the whole thing seems to be run on the basis of 'Yeah we all know it doesn't really work, but just don't take the **** and we will pretend it's all fine and functional'. At best the EFL is curbing the worst excesses while turning a blind eye to the underlying issues. We messed up, I can't really defend the way we were run - but it's not like we were one bad apple in an otherwise perfectly healthy batch. 

Also - if we are honest - the scale of losses under a straight-line amortisation policy lays bare the underlying financial situation fairly well. Our policy was based on back-ending losses and essentially pretending worthless players were worth something. Huge losses were only partially offset by a 'generous' stadium sale. The whole pattern is one of overspending compounded by overspending, dodging the final reckoning for as long as possible. And then the final dodge was to put the club in administration and leave the mess for someone else to clean up. I'm trying to work out what the plan was if we hadn't been pulled up on our amortisation and I'm struggling. 

Well some big revelations today. Notably the losses were considerably more than we had been led to believe and upon restating the accounts in line with the way the EFL want them doing (not going to say rules as there’s still nothing in the rule book to say it should be straight-line) and the rest of the league comply with we incurred multiple points breaches in excess of the 9 we’ve been given. In other words we’ve got off lightly it could’ve been worse, not that it really makes any difference now. 
 
Are the EFL vindicated? Absolutely not. Doesn’t change the fact they’ve allowed a competition that is grossly unfair with parachute payments and allowing bigger losses for those clubs, brought in P&S rules that are vague in some parts, complex in others and don’t really protect the integrity of the league, they don’t punish clubs who are promoted, they allow the additional dodgy practices of Wolves’ Mendes deal and use of loan system and deferring payments to essentially make top half premier league signings, they allow the dodgy practices of Watford and Forest who move players between clubs to dodge FFP. The way they have singled out Derby is a gross hypocrisy, entirely political, vindictive and is in no way about protecting the integrity of the league. If it was they’d be finding ways to go after Wolves Leicester Leeds, they’d have punished Bournemouth again upon relegation, they’d be stopping Forest’s loophole of moving players between clubs and they would be clamping down on Stoke’s dodgy practices around Covid. They are not. They are a joke of an organisation, odious to the core, and an independent regulator is badly needed.
However the EFL is not in any way to blame for our predicament, that honour falls to one man. If he’d stuck around then we might have forgiven him an FFP breach but he plunged us into administration as well and said it was in the best interests of the club. Given what has gone on, given the FFP deal the EFL put on the table to Mel is effectively the one we have now, I can see no benefit to administration other than Mel didn’t want to fund the losses any more caused by his crippling mismanagement and exacerbated by Covid, this when losses now are a great deal smaller than earlier in his stewardship. We are in this because of Mel and Stephen Pearce and no one else. 
We need to take our medicine and rebuild. The critical thing is we get a new owner by Jan as if not we could face a January that will set us back years. Get an owner in, we might be able to bounce back quickly. 
 
Final point on the EFL, will they relinquish the highly restrictive embargo should we get new owners willing to stand behind us? I get retaining it while we’re still in admin but to continue it post takeover is unnecessarily draconian and vindictive. And also, they cited a breach of the 19/20 and 20/21 merged P&S period in the judgement, so will points deductions apply when about half the league fail this accounting period? How can they not with wage bills significantly larger than ours and significant reduced revenue through Covid. 
 
The one positive is our costs are now under much better control, with a buyer, a ground (the last decent thing you can do Mel) and retaining our academy status then we will be in an excellent place to rebuild. But we need that buyer and quickly!!

Look at the losses under No. 22 of the attached https://www.efl.com/contentassets/065e21d5596b42e7a882322d3a203509/efl-v-dcfc-agreed-decision-approved-for-publication-15-november-2021.pdf
The policy change will not have effected the amount of the losses, just the timing. All our deferring of writing down the values of Johnson, Butterfield, Blackman, etc., would have hit the 2018/19 accounts hard. Long before EFL charged Derby in Jan 2020 and COVID hit us all in Mar 2020.

I think the evidence that we broke the rules is the club have accepted a penalty owing to the rules being broken.  
 
We can create conspiracy theories but the reality is the club acted entirely immorally.  I've seen suggestions that the EFL enforced an embargo, to push us into this position to then force a concession for the points deduction.  But the club hasn't been paying HMRC and hasn't produced it's accounts for a number of years, that's why an embargo/conditions were enforced.
 
The EFL have most certainly gone for the jugular.  Largely because of how Morris and co acted, but ultimately the club acted in bad faith for a sustained period of time.
 
It sucks.  But if we won the play-offs a few years back we'd all be enjoying the success that came with it, ignoring the immoral actions of the club.  
 
I think we just have to take this on the chin, it's caught up and it's no-ones fault but the decision makers at the club as to why. 
 
 
 

Find it a bit funny reading some of the comments about the adminstrators not doing their job properly or not having the club's best interests at heart.
Kind of overlooking the point that the adminstrators only came into the club as a certain person decided to put the club into administration otherwise they wouldn't be anywhere near us in the first place.
Weird logic. 

The first game I ever went to was Aston Villa at home. I don’t remember much about the game apart from this giant of a Centre back who, during the first half took a mid air ball under control, proceeded to do kick ups with it then took on the onrushing attacker and played and inch perfect 30 yard pass. 
Open mouthed I asked my dad, “who’s that dad?? He’s amazing!” 
He replied “Igor Stimac son, watch him as much as you can because it’s rare you get to see a true world class player playing for Derby and he won’t be here for long” 
He’s been my all time favourite Derby player ever since, my god that side with Stimac, Eranio, Baiano was frightening 

Fixed it for you …
(and as I haven’t read through any intervening posts, I apologise if the gag has already been done!!)

Independent regulator. Let the EFL/pl operate the commercial aspects and trade association type stuff, but the rule breaking goes via a regulator.

Trouble is, they’re no longer members of the EFL so can’t be punished by them.  The clubs breach FFP in the year they get promoted then submit accounts already being in the PL and the EFL are powerless.   If we’d have gone up in 15/16 we’d have been fine too.  It’s a problem when you have having two organisations running the game.

Trouble is, they’re no longer members of the EFL so can’t be punished by them.  The clubs breach FFP in the year they get promoted then submit accounts already being in the PL and the EFL are powerless.   If we’d have gone up in 15/16 we’d have been fine too.  It’s a problem when you have having two organisations running the game.

Trouble is, they’re no longer members of the EFL so can’t be punished by them.  The clubs breach FFP in the year they get promoted then submit accounts already being in the PL and the EFL are powerless.   If we’d have gone up in 15/16 we’d have been fine too.  It’s a problem when you have having two organisations running the game.

With respect, our 'manipulation' of financial figures is different to selling a player or having bigger gates. The latter two are accepted as being part and parcel of being a football club in a competitive league. As for amortising differently, Morris and Pearce should have been more upfront and trasparent as to their policy. If they had been clear in 2015/2016 (or whatever the time was when they first introduced their policy) I am pretty sure they would have been guided by the EFL then that their policy might not be construed as fair compared to, or by, the other member clubs. They were trying to be cute, creative, and it came back to bite them. Unfortunately it has caused huge repercussion for the Club you and I support.

Yeah, I mean desperately unlucky losing two key players to injury in the first game of season. but why not use the loan market FFS?  

We wouldn't have bought Johnson and Butterfield had the injuries not occurred. Which was clearly designed to maintain the strength of the squad, but which undoubtedly contributed materially to the massive overspend and arguably was the beginning of all our issues.