Tribunal Update

[Woodley Ram]

12 hours ago, TomG said:

I think Derby should Suit the EFL ASAP!

Burtons I hope but no doubt they will want saville row

[Spanish]

14 hours ago, Ramslaar said:

Free to celebrate they wont appeal.

oh dear

 

[Woodley Ram]

1 hour ago, SIXTEEN AGAIN said:

Not guilty on both charges the second point was just an clarity opportunity and they can't present any new evidence so no new witness either. 

 

that raises a good question, on an appeal can you bring new witnesses or do they go over the paperwork that was submitted for the tribunal? have to admit I dont know that one can any one help?

[Ghost of Clough]

3 minutes ago, Reggie Greenwood said:

They said it could have been clearer i believe which is different from not properly disclosed. Cannot see that getting much or any punishment, they only way i think they could look at the P&S was if the policy was against the rules.....................we will see but i remain confident the original decision will stand

The wording used in the Decision Document were "failed to adequately disclose" which is required under accounting standard FRS 102. That in itself is not against P&S, but could potentially incur a penalty of some sort. However, if you go back to before any charges were brought, and it emerged the club hadn't disclosed the policy clear enough, what do you think an adequate course of action would be? My view would be to make that correction in the upcoming accounts being published.

[duncanjwitham]

2 minutes ago, Woodley Ram said:

that raises a good question, on an appeal can you bring new witnesses or do they go over the paperwork that was submitted for the tribunal? have to admit I dont know that one can any one help?

I checked the rules earlier - they can only introduce evidence that wasn't available at the time of the original tribunal, and they have to actively convince the tribunal of that, they can't just claim it off hand.  Their own negligence in looking for the evidence isn't an excuse to being it in now (so they can't introduce stuff that was available back then but they just hadn't looked properly).  I can't imagine there will be anything new introduced, since nothing seems to have come to light since.

[Spanish]

2 minutes ago, Woodley Ram said:

that raises a good question, on an appeal can you bring new witnesses or do they go over the paperwork that was submitted for the tribunal? have to admit I dont know that one can any one help?

not sure either.  I think it took 3 months for the appeal to be heard for Birmingham.  It is based on whether based on the evidence that the findings were correct and whether any associated punishment was also correct.  The appellant is normally in stronger position from my experience

[Ghost of Clough]

4 minutes ago, Woodley Ram said:

that raises a good question, on an appeal can you bring new witnesses or do they go over the paperwork that was submitted for the tribunal? have to admit I dont know that one can any one help?

Just to be clear:

• Appeal his heard by the League Arbitration Panel (not Independent Disciplinary Panel)
• No new evidence can be submitted unless the evidence wasn't available at the time
• The LAP can confirm the original decision, modify the original decision, or order a new hearing with new members on the Independent Disciplinary Panel.

[BondJovi]

3 minutes ago, Spanish said:

Maybe we all need to step back and take off the rams' specs.   There was enough criticism in the IDP report for an appeal to be considered. 

Considered maybe. The policy in question is within the rules. We were only guilty of not making that change of policy clear enough. Who is to say that a different panel might think we did make it clear enough? How do you define if it was clear enough? Opinion?

A complete waste of time, like the whole thing has been.  I don't believe it is fair for a club to be pursued for over 9 months. Is that  not punishment enough?

I want to talk about football, not a load of suits with an agenda trying to save face at the cost of football clubs.

[Woodley Ram]

2 hours ago, JustOneChrissyMartin said:

We weren’t found guilty they just said it needed to be clearer 

That leaves the fifth Particular of the Second Charge. That fifth Particular is in our view well founded; a) Section 10 of FRS 102 requires an entity to disclose changes in accounting policy and changes in accounting estimates. That section sets out what such disclosure(s) must comprise/contain.

While the Club did purport to disclose the change in its approach to the amortisation of player registrations in the Notes to its Financial Statements for the years after the financial year ended 30 June 2015, the disclosures made were, as we have found, at the very least ambiguous and in reality incomplete and inaccurate; they did not reflect the realities or substance of what we have found to be the true nature and extent of the Club’s changed amortisation policy. The Club effectively accepted as much – Mr Delve accepted that, had he picked up the (accepted) ambiguity in the Notes, he would have required the Club to change the Notes to explicitly refer to the changes and the new approach. He thus accepted that the Notes in the financial statements for the years to which the Second Charge relates were inadequate c) Because of that, we find that the Club failed to comply with section 10 of FRS 102 d) To that extent therefore the fifth Particular of Second Charge is made out.261)

The First Charge is dismissed. 262) As regards the Second Charge:

a) We make no finding on the first Particular of Charge 1 since that Particular was withdrawn

b) The second Particular of the Second Charge is dismissed

c) The third Particular of the Second Charge is dismissed

d) The fourth Particular of the Second is dismissed

e) The fifth Particular of the Second Charge is proven on the basis that, following the change to the Club’s approach to amortisation of the capitalised costs of player registrations at the end of the financial year ended 30 June 2015, the Club’s annual financial statements for the years ended 30 June 2016, 30 June 2017 and 30 June 2018 failed to adequately disclose those changes to its accounting policies and/or estimates as required by section 10 of FRS 102.

failed to comply with section 10 and 5th part of second charge made out/proven = guilty of 1 of the 5 parts of the second charge.   

[Ghost of Clough]

5 minutes ago, BondJovi said:

Considered maybe. The policy in question is within the rules. We were only guilty of not making that change of policy clear enough. Who is to say that a different panel might think we did make it clear enough? How do you define if it was clear enough? Opinion?

A complete waste of time, like the whole thing has been.  I don't believe it is fair for a club to be pursued for over 9 months. Is that  not punishment enough?

I want to talk about football, not a load of suits with an agenda trying to save face at the cost of football clubs.

Our accounts stated the following:

The actual policy is more complicated than that, with the use of ERVs, reviewed every 6 months, etc... It's obvious is wasn't adequately disclosed

[BondJovi]

3 minutes ago, Ghost of Clough said:

Our accounts stated the following:

The actual policy is more complicated than that, with the use of ERVs, reviewed every 6 months, etc... It's obvious is wasn't adequately disclosed

That is an issue that should have been resolved at the time by both the EFL and Derby.

Does it really warrant all this crap?

[Rample]

Talk about out to get us. They won't stop until they have something, even if its less than the cost of the court action to get it.

I thought yesterday when considering the apportionment of the Bogle/Lowe fees, they will come after us for that if there is the slightest hint its unbalanced and we're not giving Swindon their dues.

They'll also be scurrying around now looking at how we're funding Rooney, and at the loan we've just taken. 

Sign someone like Jozwiak and they will be triple checking everything, looking for technicalities and making it difficulf as possible for us.

Bunch of facists.

[MikeS]

2 hours ago, RamNut said:

The amortisation decision creates a precedent which presumably they don’t want.

secondly, I think the idc also made comment that we failed to make full disclosure, and we’re not able to provide much to evidence or corroborate our new ‘systematic’ process. If so, that is a weakness in our case.  

others with more interest in these things may argue otherwise, but it seems to me that our method of calculating the depreciation in the asset value of players, allows us to manipulate or manage the timing of the losses. We could in theory defer and group the losses into one year. That could allow us to manipulate the timings so that in one particular year the stadium sale wipes out all of the losses which would otherwise have occurred over several years. A very different timeline might have given a very different scenario of ffp compliance or non-compliance. 

personally I detest all this accountancy baalocks. As I have said before our crime was not excessive spending but poor recruitment. If we could have sold butterfield, Johnson, Blackman, huddlestone etc for reasonable fees then we wouldn’t be in this mess.  And the financial limits now effectively prohibit clubs from investing in players, when salaries and running costs already put the clubs on the brink of non-compliance. The accountancy rules have taken over. 

It's not compliance now, it's the amortisation policy they want to strike down.

An easy way out would be for the club to just say that they will change the policy. But would MM now be willing to accept what looks a climbdown to the EFL after what they have put the club through?

[MikeS]

36 minutes ago, Ghost of Clough said:

Just to be clear:

• Appeal his heard by the League Arbitration Panel (not Independent Disciplinary Panel)
• No new evidence can be submitted unless the evidence wasn't available at the time
• The LAP can confirm the original decision, modify the original decision, or order a new hearing with new members on the Independent Disciplinary Panel.

It looks like the arbitration panel will again be independent and made up of legal people (solicitors or barristers), agreed by both sides.

[Sparkle]

1 hour ago, StarterForTen said:

Surely this is just about mitigating legal costs isn't it? The EFL are staring down the gun barrel of a seven figure bill and I would assume they think leveraging point 5 of the second charge (which, on reading the findings, I think they are entitled to do) could help them swerve some of the costs.

I think the EFL will win this one because a breach (albeit a seemingly administrative one) was found and not punished. That said, I do not think the the punishment will be severe; more than likely a fine. However, such a 'victory' would give them grounds to defend the apportionment of costs.

That opportunity, along with any fine they might bring in, makes this a defendable decision. I appreciate it is unpalatable to us Derby people but this is just corporate manoeuvring. The EFL's lawyers will be telling them that by going down this path it may be that, at the end of it, they are exposed to a bill of £500k instead of £1m.

Easy as it is to think there is some form of agenda against the Club, sometimes it's just down to the pounds, shillings and pence.

That’s the way I am viewing it - they are trying to save money and want the ability to say look we were right 

meanwhile if this doesn’t worry every football club in the EFL nothing will 

[Tamworthram]

1 hour ago, Spanish said:

I don't like the method we use, never had.  It was never a core process change based on a fundamental belief that the standard practice was faulty.  I stand to be corrected but the sense I have was it was a solution to deal with the Clement overspending when we suddenly became aware that we could not fund a straight line policy

The thing about football is that the value of it’s key asset (for clubs that don’t own their own stadium), the players registration, is somewhat different to the assets of most other businesses. It’s not like you’ve bought a piece of machinery that you know you’re going to have to replace in x years - at the end of those years the machinery's value is probably nil so you can depreciate it on a straight line basis. We all know that the value of a players registration may go down, stay the same or even go up during the period of his contract. Even in the player’s final year. Therefore, there is no ideal model for amortisation. Also, it all evens its self out in the end so, any benefit we may have gained would only have been short term (I agree with your assumption that it was probably adopted to overcome the Clement overspend). I’m sure I read, or heard, somewhere that a number of premier league clubs use the same (or similar) policy as us.
 

I think the EFL should determine the policy to be used and the same should be adopted by all clubs.

[The Scarlet Pimpernel]

Am I correct in thinking that the EFL are upset because they feel our way of revaluing our players every 6 months allows us to, as they see it, manipulate our P&S figures?

[irobinson]

1 hour ago, BondJovi said:

That is an issue that should have been resolved at the time by both the EFL and Derby.

Does it really warrant all this crap?

No it doesn't

 

Amortisation and paying over a period is perfectly acceptable - core accountancy policy on costs. Thats a club issue

 

People buy cars like that!!

[CornwallRam]

5 minutes ago, The Scarlet Pimpernel said:

Am I correct in thinking that the EFL are upset because they feel our way of revaluing our players every 6 months allows us to, as they see it, manipulate our P&S figures?

Yes, and they'd be right. I also think their problem is that other clubs could revisit their accounts to see if our method would have gotten them clear of FFP/P&S sanctions - maybe Brum or the Wendies could revisit their verdicts. 

That's not our problem though. All we have to show is that we acted within the rules - not that the rules were fit for purpose. 

[duncanjwitham]

4 minutes ago, CornwallRam said:

Yes, and they'd be right. I also think their problem is that other clubs could revisit their accounts to see if our method would have gotten them clear of FFP/P&S sanctions - maybe Brum or the Wendies could revisit their verdicts. 

That's not our problem though. All we have to show is that we acted within the rules - not that the rules were fit for purpose. 

The thing is though, we still have to account for the amortisation, whether we do it in year 1 or year 4.  We can still spend the same amount of money as other clubs (relative to club income etc etc) in the long term, we maybe just have a little bit more flexibility about when we do it.  We're not suddenly able to spend millions that we otherwise wouldn't and other clubs can't.  So I'd argue it really isn't even against the spirit of the rules.