vonwright

Still think the problem here is there is absolutely no agreement on what the court would be asked to determine:

a) is the EFL entitled to have specific 'football rules' which go beyond usual administration law, and to kick out clubs that don't abide by those rules?

b) is the EFL entitled to treat 'football claims' along the same lines as 'football debts' - ie to say to clubs 'either agree to pay the claim in full if that's what an EFL panel decides, or agree a settlement, or lose your place in the league?'

c) is it admissible to treat this specific claim as a 'football debt' as defined by the EFL rules?

d) do the claims have any merit and in which case how much are Boro and Wycombe owed in damages?

The EFL want to focus on the technicalities and process, basically a and b. But we need clarity on c and d. I think the EFL and Boro will be very keen to keep those 'in house' because once they are settled it becomes impossible to bully and blackmail us. 

1 hour ago, Sparkle said:

We can’t really have a case against Villa if we had breached FFP even by a small margin - QPR absolutely - now QPR could go to court and have it thrown out because of the time delay but they would be breaching the EFL rules/guidelines and can be thrown out as well 

I wonder how many clubs would have a claim against QPR, and for how much, if an EFL panel rules that we do in fact owe Middlesbrough cash and sets an incredibly dangerous precedent.

Us? For half the supposed premiership windfall? The team they beat in the semi-final? Do they get a quarter? What about the team who finished seventh? Any team that can "prove" QPR's results against them had an effect on them - ie how did the relegated and nearly-relegated teams do against QPR? 

Did QPR sign any players during that time that other clubs can prove they were pursuing? Have those players since been sold for a profit?

What kind of total bill are we looking at here?

Does the EFL specify some sort of time-limit on these claims in its rules? If not, why can't we pursue them now, or at whatever point we feel like it in the future?

How do we formalise how we quantify the points loss to the "affected" teams? Is a £1million overspend equivalent to one unearned league point, for example? And are we just going to make that up on the hoof at an EFL hearing, or shouldn't we actually agree it between the clubs first?

And do the points deductions get adjusted or is this some additional penalty on top of the one we thought we had all agreed?

It's an absolute mess. 

1 hour ago, Archie said:

They're different points. Agree, most of this is down to Morris's utter incompetence. You were suggesting handing over money to the two parasite clubs based on their ridiculous claims. I firmly believe we shouldn't. The claims are laughable to say the least. Paying these is an admission of guilt and sets a precedence for the whole of football. In effect hammering in the final nails in its coffin.

Someone on Twitter (I think) put it well: Morris was responsible for getting us into this terrible mess, but it is the EFL, Boro and Wycombe who are preventing us getting out of it. We've accepted our punishment and as far as the club is concerned, Morris has gone. The stadium is a separate issue really: he owns it, but needs to sell it for £20million in order to repay a loan he personally guaranteed.

Suggesting he has a place at talks is simply playing to Gibson's agenda. Gibson basically wants Morris to give him a share of the stadium sale proceeds and take a financial hit in repaying the loan. The EFL should absolutely not be encouraging or enabling this. It has nothing to do with the club, or what the club needs to do the exit administration. It's basically Gibson holding a gun to the club's head while demanding money from Morris ("You still love this club don't you, Mel? Well give me the money.")

21 minutes ago, gfs1ram said:

 

12 minutes ago, David said:

Again, don’t feel a campaign is needed. They won’t be sat in an office twiddling thumbs wondering where to go from here when it’s blatantly obvious. Tonight’s EFL statement leaves them with nowhere else to turn.

They may already have the ball rolling with high court papers landing on Gibson’s doorstep in the morning.

I think I saw BAWT or RamsTrust request today their weekly SCG meeting with Quantuma, would imagine we will hear something shortly. I would however rather now every hour of each day was tied up with sorting this out, not holed up in meetings with the EFL, fans and MP’s. Clock is ticking.

Absolutely. The whole tone of that EFL statement was 'see you in court'.

(With just a tiny hint of '...But let's drag the stadium and Morris and MSD into this, since that'll confuse casual onlookers from other clubs, and in any case that's who Gibbo really wants to feel pain')

25 minutes ago, Tyler Durden said:

Who would rule though that we do owe Boro and Wycombe money?

That's the bit I can't grasp. And why haven't we got to that point yet if we are so confident that their claims are spurious. 

I really don't know - I'd assume it would be some EFL panel. And I'd assume we've not got there because the administrators were sure they'd just be able to write the debts down (and would obviously rather do that, to save time and to avoid any risk of a huge future payment).

But the whole thing is so opaque and secretive... I just don't know.

9 minutes ago, Tyler Durden said:

Further the EFL are saying that these claims therefore need to be classified as football debts so therefore need to be lumped into the outstanding debt owed to HMRC etc. 

I'm not sure they are saying this exactly. I don't think they see themselves as saying Derby does or doesn't owe the clubs any money. They are just saying that if it is ruled that we owe them money, then that will be a footballing debt. And that therefore we can't just write down the claims, because these special 'football debt' rules kick in. 

In other words the EFL would be happy to kick a hearing about whether we owe money, and how much, down the line until after a sale - provided we paid it in full. They want us to undertake to do that, or to come up with some 'settlement' now.

But the administrators know full well they cant sell the club on that basis. And they think they shouldn't have to as a potential football debt is not the same as an actual football debt - particularly when it is based on such thin grounds. 

I think at this point we just need a hearing to decide whether we owe money or not. To decide the merits of these claims.

If the worst happens and it is ruled we do owe some money at least people will see who is really liquidating this club. 

33 minutes ago, QuitYourJibbaJivin said:

 

So the EFL believe the claims should be classed as football debt, did I read that right? So literally any number that WW or MFC plucked out of their heads, we’d have to pay? 

I guess they are saying that _if_ they are a debt _then_ they are a football-related debt, and therefore we would owe the money in full. So they won't let the administrators do what they would if this was any other type of business: simply reject the claims on their own authority. Legally we could do that, but we'd be kicked out of the league. 

The EFL are saying that we either settle the claim now or find a buyer willing to accept a ruling on whether we owe money, and how much, after a sale. 

It all seems a bit unfair. The reason administration law allows the administrators to compromise away speculative claims like this is because that's the only way real creditors get paid, and stricken businesses get sold. 

Feels like the only way forward is a ruling on the substantive issue, ie whether we owe these clubs anything and if so how much. Failing that I guess some sort of ruling on whether the EFL rules - requiring not just that _actual_ football debts are paid, but that 'potential' ones protected from normal administration processes - are excessively restrictive. But given that we are talking about membership of a club with its own rules, I'm not sure how we'd do that. 

56 minutes ago, Ellafella said:

 

So for all this EFL talk of the Middlesbrough and Wycombe claims not being the problem... turns out the Middlesbrough and Wycombe claims are the problem.

22 hours ago, Crewton said:

If the rumours were true, the maximum additional sums we could have picked up from Delap's add-ons was about £1.8M - useful, but not mind-blowing - but City have undoubtedly taken advantage of the situation with limited benefit to us.

It's possible we approached them with the suggestion? We are the ones who are desperate for cash.

On 01/02/2022 at 13:08, Crewton said:

Sell an add-on that would be worthless after liquidation or sell Sibley for 1/2 million now instead. That might be the assessment Quantuma have had to make. 

If true, it's another example of the damage that Mel has done. At least it's not going to pay a Panama-based lender for the sole benefit of the parasite owners and is possibly one of the sources for the funding for February. 

Don't worry, I won't be offering Systematic Oppression FC any thanks or praise for this one. 

Yeah it's not great but I could see how this could be a least-worst option. We really don't want to be selling any more players for rock-bottom prices, and we've not got a lot of options for raising funds.

At the moment the priority has to be keep the club going long enough to get clarity on the claims against us, then - depending how that goes - achieve a sale. If there's no prospect of Delap being sold any time soon (and clearly he's not going anywhere until at least summer now), then it seems a reasonable thing to do.

We are in a life-or-death struggle here, and run by administrators whose first duty is to the creditors. In those circumstances I'm actually relieved, and pleasantly surprised, we didn't see a fire sale of players last month. I'm less bothered about cashing in a clause that might be worth a lot of money at some unspecified point in the future - at the moment there are no guarantees we will even have a club by the time Delap is sold.

4 minutes ago, RadioactiveWaste said:

I think Lawrence and bielik are the only big earners left?

Some others probably on "decent" championship money, everyone else youth salary or EFL mandated £4.5k per week.

 

Yep and it's irrelevant anyway. The administrators need to get us sold, and in their view letting our few remaining assets go for a fraction of their value makes no sense, and makes a sale less likely. The EFL has already punished us for breaking the rules. Do people really want the EFL to be able to mandate sales as an additional punishment? In what circumstances? And if not: either buy the club yourself, or mind your own business. 

'Look Granny no one wants to see you out of hospital more than me, but if you are that sick then you won't be wanting those fancy chocolates, will you? So I'll just take them and be on my way.'

20 minutes ago, RadioactiveWaste said:

He also appears to be labouring under the misunderstanding that restatement of our accounts would have instigated an immediate deduction of points for the previous season.

The restatement of our accounts, or, financials as he says, would then be reviewed by the EFL and if necessary a new disciplinary procedure started, which is what happened and ultimately the administrators agreed a 9 point deduction for.

Yeah it's interesting how the Wycombe and Boro claims actually seem to cut against each other, or are at least based on different arguments.

Wycombe: you should have published your accounts earlier, then the penalty would have been imposed earlier and we'd have been promoted.

Boro: doesn't matter when the penalty came in, the fact is you "cheated" (breached the limits) in season x, and that gave you an unfair advantage in that season, and that cost us money.

I don't think Wycombe are going to have any joy if we published our accounts within the agreed timetable, and the EFL then decided to apply the deduction in 2021/22. They might be better off making the same argument as Boro. (I think we did breach the limits it 2020/21, but it memory serves by a pretty tiny amount.)

39 minutes ago, JfR said:

There are multiple reasons why Derby owes Wycombe money. Perhaps the simplest to understand is that Derby...

Another one hiding behind "It's all really complicated, don't try to understand it!"

I don't think the Wycombe claim is particularly complicated. I don't think there are "multiple reasons", I think both their claim and Middlesbrough's claim boil down to the same thing: if a club was found guilty of P+S breaches in season X, can another club claim damages for supposed financial losses 'caused' by those breaches, on top of the agreed points penalties imposed by the EFL? And then the relevant questions include how you'd quantify those losses, how you'd prove the P+S breach caused the losses, and so on, which I think will be very hard for Wycombe and Middlesbrough to do (and hard for the EFL to support). But let's get it all out in the open, and stop this "It's all very complicated but we aren't the hold up here, it's all Derby's fault!"

9 hours ago, Brailsford Ram said:

What did all of these teams that exited administration have in common that allowed their survival and continued membership of the Football League? The answer is that they all had the full support of the other member clubs of the EFL, including Derby County. Those member clubs collectively recognised that the penalties imposed by the EFL were sufficient. There was no need for any of those clubs to seek a double jeopardy penalty by seeking extra compensation for their own perceived losses.

This is a really important point. Clearly I blame Morris for us being in administration, and the scale of our (real) debts. But it's infuriating hearing the EFL trying to both legitimise and minimise the Boro and Wycombe claims ('They must be heard!' 'They might be football debts and payable in full!' 'You can't move forward until these are dealt with!' but also 'These claims aren't the real problem!')

Well the administrators, whose job it is to sell the club, think they are a problem. Would-be buyers clearly think they are a problem. And common sense says they would be a problem. Who spends £30m or £40m on a sticker business when you might be told you need to be tens of millions more somewhere down the line?

The EFL is also suggesting there's no deal with HMRC, and that's supposedly the administrators' fault. How can there be when we don't know if these claimants are creditors at all, or football creditors, or unsecured creditors, or how much they are supposedly due?

You'd think the EFL would be more worried about the precedent of clubs effectively suing each other for damages on top of the EFL's own agreed penalties for P and S breaches that happened years ago under owners who are no longer around. Is that where we want to be? 

As I've said before, i don't think this is a story with just one villain.

There is obviously a risk in all this if it brings clarity that has to be good. We need to know what we 'owe' these clubs - whether that's £0 or £50m. And the EFL, and the clubs, need to know that too. Otherwise it's virtually impossible to find a buyer. 

At the moment Boro and Wycombe have completely undue influence over the process, which the EFL is enabling, whether through weakness ('We are just here to act as an honest broker! We love all the clubs equally! Please don't ask us who is right or wrong!') or something more sinister. We are basically being held to ransom ('We know you can't sell while our claims are unsettled, and if you don't sell you get liquidated, so make us an offer and this can all go away...') And that's intolerable, and unfair, if those claims have no merit.

Even if it is decided that we owe Boro and Wycombe £50m how much worse off are we? They could still accept a far lower sum if they were serious about not wanting to force us out of business. And if they didn't we'd get liquidated and they'd get nothing anyway. So at least their motivation would be clear.

11 minutes ago, vonwright said:

Sky does on-the-record interview with Parry about how they are the good guys who will 'work night and day' to save Derby.

In the same story, 'a source' regurgitates old figures to paint Derby as a massive financial basket case that no one would buy.

Whoever could this source possibly be?

If only we had a shortlist of senior people involved in league football that the journalist had spoken to that day!

It's also remarkable that this 'source' - let's call then Phnarry - is shocked and stunned by a championship club having £60m of total debts, but apparently completely cool with another championship club demanding £40m compensation from a liquidation-threatened rival for finishing seventh rather than sixth.

18 minutes ago, RoyMac5 said:

Parry! FFS you have to laugh...

Sky does on-the-record interview with Parry about how they are the good guys who will 'work night and day' to save Derby.

In the same story, 'a source' regurgitates old figures to paint Derby as a massive financial basket case that no one would buy.

Whoever could this source possibly be?

If only we had a shortlist of senior people involved in league football that the journalist had spoken to that day!

55 minutes ago, Rambalin said:

 

Need details on exactly what "legal decision" they are seeking.

That said, it does kind of suggest that the Boro and Wycombe claims are the central problem, despite what Gibson might say. It still seems likely to me that if those claims were withdrawn or quashed, the sale would go through fairly smoothly.

17 minutes ago, PistoldPete said:

The very least I would expect is to signal what exactly is being done… other than just talking… what if any progress has been made?

"We had complex discussions about complex issues, and we plan to have some more."

I was actually quite annoyed by the blithe statement that key issues were "well known". No, they really aren't. We know bits and pieces picked up from media leaks and partial statements. We are looking to the MPs to listen to both sides and clarify the details!

18 minutes ago, Topram said:

So nothings changed again what are these meetings even doing apart from wasting time? Just the same story over and over 

I suppose it's impossible to tell. They might have made a lot of progress or none. What I find incredibly frustrating is the way all parties - even the MPs - hide behind "commercial confidentiality" and "it's a complex situation" as an excuse to say nothing about anything of consequence.

Is there a good reason, for example, the MPs couldn't give us a summary of what they think the main problems are, and how they think they should be resolved? What they think of the Boro and Wycombe claims, and whether they are a major stumbling block? Whether they think the EFL should say whether Boro and Wycombe are football creditors? And so on.

It's ridiculous how little we actually know about what's happening, what the disagreements are, and how our political representatives - having heard from both sides - think they should be resolved.

"It's complex" - yeah, we know, that's why we need you to explain it to us, having heard from both sides.

"Commercially confidential" - some bits, but not necessarily the bits we are interested in. And if the EFL and/or administrators are insisting you say nothing about anything as a condition of having meetings, let's hear that. And let's hear you complaining about it.

19 minutes ago, duncanjwitham said:

I agree it's probably a long shot now, but it won't take months. All we need to do is file a notice of arbitration:

That's going to take a lawyer like an hour to draft, and then you can tweak it for the other clubs.  We don't need to take any of them further. We don't need to appoint lawyers to argue our case or anything.  Make it clear to the clubs we're claiming against that we'll drop the claims as soon as we're cleared.  But the most important thing, is that any LAP hearing our case knows the full consequences of giving a decision against us.

Certainly seems it would be worth the administrators, or someone connected with the club, checking whether there is any time limit on claims, and (if not) then mentioning the possibility at least. Perhaps asking Gibson if he thinks QPR owe us 2x the amount he is claiming from us, since we made the play-off final?

35 minutes ago, atherstoneram said:

The respective parties are probably doing that and believe they are in the right,they are not going to suddenly change track because an MP has told them to do so. 

I'm sure they do all believe they are in the right. The point is at the moment we don't have any clarity on what the situation is: what exactly do the administrators want the EFL to do, for example? Why? Is there anything short of that that would achieve a satisfactory result? Is there a reasonable middle ground?  And so on for all the parties. A lot of us on this thread are doing little more than guessing, because we just don't have the information, and we haven't been party to discussions, and we don't know the legal situation, etc etc.

That's part of the reason that you are seeing some people on here blaming the EFL, and some blaming Gibson, and some blaming the administrators, and some blaming Mel, and some blaming Mel's-MP's-son's-fellow-panel-member.

Feels to me like if the MPs could get all these people (okay maybe not the panel member) in a room and get some answers, identify the real obstacles, and start suggesting ways forward, we might at least emerge with a clear picture of who needs to do what, and who is preventing us moving forward, and why.

Are the EFL or Gibson or even our administrators going to listen to a bunch of MPs telling them what to do? Maybe not. But if those MPs can clarify who is holding things up, and what they should be told to do, that would be a huge step forward. It gives all of us - fans, MPs, media figures, even government ministers - something specific to aim for. It allows everyone to apply pressure in the right place.

At the moment the only clear rally cry we all share is "Save Derby County!" And that's great, as far as it goes. But who? And how? It's not pressuring any specific person to take any specific action. It's the kind of thing everyone involved can agree with - even Gibson, I imagine. And that's very dangerous. We could all be shouting "Save Derby County!" as the club gets liquidated.

5 minutes ago, duncanjwitham said:

Yeah, I get that, but there's literally nothing in the EFL rules that say what you can and can't claim for.  The only rule seems to be that LAP decisions are binding with no appeal.  But does that even apply here if the case gets squashed before it even gets that far? Even if we end up getting restructured into a completely different legal entity, what's to stop 'Boro and Wycombe arguing that we're functionally the same club, since we inherited the club's golden share etc.

I don't see how anything other than the claims being settled, decided by a LAP, or the EFL declaring the claims are invalid for some reason (and dealing with any resultant cases from 'Boro or Wycombe against them for that decision) decides the matter finally. None of which we really have time for.

It's a mess all right. Definitely better to have the claims removed or declared invalid but failing that, the best way through that I can see is the EFL accepting these are not 'football creditors' (they aren't creditors at all!) and then leaving the administrators to treat the claims as they see fit. If Boro and Wycombe can legally being some sort of case in the future again the 'new' Derby, so be it. If they can't, then good. Either way normal administration rules should be respected and the priority should be the sale of the club and the satisfaction of actual creditors. We shouldn't have to waste time going in circles over these undetermined, spurious-looking claims.