Abu Derby County

[kevinhectoring]

18 minutes ago, Rev said:

Sorry.

Shouldn't have used we, when discussing on a Derby county dedicated forum the entirely separate legal entity that is the club.

From now on, I will always use the prefix Mel Morris's Derby County, that I happen to be a supporter of.

Please accept my congratulations on your comeback ? 

[CBRammette]

There are a lot of bad comments on here. In the current climate perhaps there is more going on somewhere that means this has taken a bit of a backseat or is taking longer. I am not ITK or anything like that in the slightest but none of us know whether something else rather than Mel abandoning us or the buyers wearing the emperor's new clothes could account for the delay and there may be no statement due to privacy. Someone on here intimated something like this months ago I think somewhere but cant remember who said what.  I agree it all seems desperate and has a real feel of impending doom but until we know we just dont know. Well someone does but everyone very tight-lipped except re wages point. 

[Newcastle Fan]

Hello again lads and lasses

I’ve just read an article in the Athletic - DCFC haven’t been paying the players’ wages?  Apparently the club were relying on BZG to takeover and pick up the tab?  That’s a pretty risky strategy given their previous ...

Until that article, I must admit I’d forgotten about it - coverage in the press has died off.  Has Midhat turned up talking poo yet?  Around this time with the ‘takeover’ of NUFC, two things were happening - absolute radio silence from BZG (they just dropped off the radar), and rumours about approaches being made to venture capitalists in the US & Japan to fund BZG’s takeover (a leveraged buyout - for those unfamiliar with this, Burnley’s takeover is the latest example.  Skint/miserly new owners borrow cash to buy the club against the value of the club, who’s revenue is then used to pay off the loan + interest).  Though I’d imagine that any venture capitalist looked at BZG’s laughable website (replete with easily disprovable boasts, which appeared to be made by a sixth form IT student) would’ve ran a mile.

To be fair to them, they didn’t get as far as actually bidding for Liverpool or Newcastle.  They asked how much the clubs would cost, then Midhat boasted about buying the clubs (still waiting on that one).  He gave a timescale of a few days - then disappeared off the face of the earth.  So either the EFL has the worst O&D test in the world (possible, given Blackpool’s plight), or they must have been able to show your owner something.  Or he’s a gullible buffoon (rather than Ashley, who’s an astute but nasty piece of work).

Hope you’re all not pinning too much on BZG to come through - DCFC’s league position looks precarious, and I’m guessing you’d be looking to recruit sharpish.  Terrible that DCFC are sat where they are in the table - the last thing the club needs is anyone farting around with the club for a bit of ego-stroking.

[S8TY]

It’s a disgrace that employees of DCFC did not get paid 

Mel cannot say it’s down to the new owners....from a players perspective this is really not good , we are struggling and have no permanent manager then let’s derail thing s further by not paying people!! I mean it’s a joke ....If the sale is not complete then Mel should be honouring his contracted staff if he is not the owner anymore then the new owners should,ve covered the wages as a priority ....and as for transfer window.....I can imagine there are players just chomping at the bit to come here and not get paid either ...once can be an error twice is no error ....shambles at the moment ...and sorry to say but Mel is not exactly covering himself in glory here...even though I have no doubts he means well.....sad times ?

[Tyler Durden]

2 hours ago, S8TY said:

It’s a disgrace that employees of DCFC did not get paid 

Mel cannot say it’s down to the new owners....from a players perspective this is really not good , we are struggling and have no permanent manager then let’s derail thing s further by not paying people!! I mean it’s a joke ....If the sale is not complete then Mel should be honouring his contracted staff if he is not the owner anymore then the new owners should,ve covered the wages as a priority ....and as for transfer window.....I can imagine there are players just chomping at the bit to come here and not get paid either ...once can be an error twice is no error ....shambles at the moment ...and sorry to say but Mel is not exactly covering himself in glory here...even though I have no doubts he means well.....sad times ?

Mel's not saying a lot which is part of the problem

[G-Ram]

8 hours ago, kevinhectoring said:

And if you were paid an enormous amount? And had an enormous amount in the bank? And you knew the owner could afford to pay you, and would do so very soon ? And if the owner as well as your childhood hero and his ex-England manager boss explained to you that there were good reasons for the employer not paying you this month because of a monumental deal affecting the employer? And if they asked you please just to give the club a few more days at this time  ?
 

 I think you’d say “ok that’s fine.”  And focus on the next game.  

Its not always the case though. Some of the younger players won't be on 'enormous' amounts. They might be on a couple of grand a week. By the time they have a house & car & live to what they are paid then they might need the money 

Its also the principle. If your supposed to be paid on a certain date then money should hit your account on that date regardless of what you get paid 

Its happened at the start of a transfer window, it also happened last year & during the season. Due to the covid some players deferred wages & took less money. As a player, who's job it is & not a fan then to be honest id be pretty annoyed. Id think i helped out a few month ago but now you can't be bothered to pay me on time. Its about respect. 

Im sure each individual would feel differently. Some might not be bothered. But if i had a family & the option came along to go somewhere else who would pay me on time then id force it through. 

[Gritty]

7 hours ago, Leicester Ram said:

We won't know 100% of the picture with Mel for a long time, things will come out about what it's been like behind the scenes in the Mel Morris era over the next few years and we'll be able to have a better informed debate on what he really did for this club.

But what we do know about Mel is that he's pumped his own money into the club when others wouldn't, a fair bloody chunk of his cash spent extremely ambitiously. Spent so ambitiously that it has us in a bit of a hole. We've been consistently in the playoffs under Mel and even been a game away, you'll have your own opinion of if we've been unlucky or got what we deserved.

Mel's biggest legacy is already obvious. Plenty of owners throw money at a promotion push but not all of them invest so much in the facilities and particularly the academy. Moor Farm has fast become the home to a top rate academy that is steadily providing the first team with young players that we either sell for a huge profit or will eventually play a key part in a promotion.

We may be in a crap situation right now but Mel's still put some foundations to build on long term. We'll see what's really gone on with this takeover some day but for now I'm pretty glad Mel Morris took over the club.

This is a fair take imo. He did have good intentions and the academy is a real achievement. 

However, can we afford to remain at category 1 (coaches to player ratio etc. It's not just facilities) which costs us £3mn a year? If we go to cat 2 because new owner won't fund, we'll get the existing players plundered. And one assumes new ones less likely to be as good if coaching downgraded.

Nothing to say this WILL happen.  But it's a risk. 

Mel has made many mistakes (well intentioned even if I disagree with his decisions he made). But the academy needs to endure. I really hope we get a new owner who will fund it

[Ken Tram]

55 minutes ago, G-Ram said:

Some of the younger players won't be on 'enormous' amounts. They might be on a couple of grand a week.

?

[BramcoteRam84]

Mel isn’t saying anything which is of course leading to uncertainty. Therefore to fill the void we have Twitter bedwetters desperate for a drama, and this thread where the majority of the comments are opinions about doom ridden scenarios on absolutely no basis, which some even considering their opinions and speculation fact because we have nothing else to go on. Oh that and the article in The Athletic which lets face it is a nothing article, no criticism of Ryan Conway but he has nothing to go on.
 

It isn’t good, clarity is required to stop this daily bedwetting, but I won’t pass judgement on the state of the club until we have something more concrete. My gut feeling like many is the takeover is in doubt but i also don’t think if it doesn’t happen Mel is going to plunge us into administration either. But I don’t know like everyone else.

 

[Tamworthram]

2 hours ago, Tyler Durden said:

Mel's not saying a lot which is part of the problem

It’s a problem for us but he might well be saying all he can and should internally (I don’t mean talking to himself for all the comedians out there).

On the recent thread about technology, someone has mentioned the internet. One of the drawbacks is it’s driven a demand and desire for instant, around the clock information and updates. Like everyone else, I would very much like some kind of genuine announcement and update on progress but, I’m not in the “he must”, “he should”, “supporters deserve better” (apart from the ticket refunds which doesn’t affect me but I do think is not good enough), “it’s shameful and a disgrace” camp.

[Gaspode]

Has there ever been a time when there have been so many self-entitled muppets posting on these boards? And I don’t just mean the relative newbies but also some of the older folk who should know better.

Crying like a bunch of school kids because Mel won’t tell them what’s going on with the takeover (ever heard of confidentiality?); wanting a protest outside the ground - great idea in the current COVID climate - make the club look even worse, spread the disease and kill a few folk into the bargain; demanding we splurge millions on players and then constantly moaning because the club doesn’t have any money and has breached FFP......etc, etc. Pathetic.....

I’d almost welcome relegation if it meant we could get back to a hardcore of fans that actually support the club come what may - hopefully the fly by night folk that latched onto us due to the Lampard/Rooney factor will go back to ‘supporting’ their distant favourite PL clubs and the other moaners can take a good hard look in the mirror and decide whether they are following the club for any reason other than as an excuse to constantly whinge and complain.....

[Tamworthram]

12 hours ago, Topram said:

Surely no one can stick up for Mel now, he’s starting to tear this club apart

Surely no one can completely condemn him either until we know the actual facts.

[Tamworthram]

10 hours ago, G-Ram said:

Two things

If i hadn't been paid from work i wouldn't turn up on Monday. I wouldn't blame the players if theyre on the phone to their agents trying to get away. You can't mess with peoples pay regardless of the money they are paid. It creates an ill feeling & its not professional 

If you're not moving forward & improving then you're going backwards. Everything is on hold because of this takeover. We can't even begin to start signing players because we don't know where we are shopping. 

 

I would if I knew my employers were under financial pressure but were also allegedly in the throws of a takeover. I’d grudgingly accept but  keep a watchful eye out to ensure it is paid within the timescales they have promised.

IF they missed the deadline or it kept on happening (and I don’t just mean in twelve months time) I might take a different view but, at this moment in time, apart from a gesture of protest, I wouldn’t have anything to gain by not going in on Monday.

[Josh]

15 minutes ago, Gaspode said:

Has there ever been a time when there have been so many self-entitled muppets posting on these boards? And I don’t just mean the relative newbies but also some of the older folk who should know better.

Crying like a bunch of school kids because Mel won’t tell them what’s going on with the takeover (ever heard of confidentiality?); wanting a protest outside the ground - great idea in the current COVID climate - make the club look even worse, spread the disease and kill a few folk into the bargain; demanding we splurge millions on players and then constantly moaning because the club doesn’t have any money and has breached FFP......etc, etc. Pathetic.....

I’d almost welcome relegation if it meant we could get back to a hardcore of fans that actually support the club come what may - hopefully the fly by night folk that latched onto us due to the Lampard/Rooney factor will go back to ‘supporting’ their distant favourite PL clubs and the other moaners can take a good hard look in the mirror and decide whether they are following the club for any reason other than as an excuse to constantly whinge and complain.....

22nd in the league, we have an ownership issue that's costing us time to bring in players. I think fans have a right to ducking moan!

[Mihangel]

10 hours ago, G-Ram said:

If i hadn't been paid from work i wouldn't turn up on Monday.

 

To be fair, that marks the difference between someone who is interested in their career and, erm, someone who isn't. It's happened to me a couple of times, it's not ideal but sometimes poo happens. Phone your bank, tell them what's happening and on you go....

[Mihangel]

22 minutes ago, Gaspode said:

Has there ever been a time when there have been so many self-entitled muppets posting on these boards? And I don’t just mean the relative newbies but also some of the older folk who should know better.

If there has been, it passed me by, it's quite startling.

27 minutes ago, Tamworthram said:

On the recent thread about technology, someone has mentioned the internet. One of the drawbacks is it’s driven a demand and desire for instant, around the clock information and updates. Like everyone else, I would very much like some kind of genuine announcement and update on progress but, I’m not in the “he must”, “he should”, “supporters deserve better” (apart from the ticket refunds which doesn’t affect me but I do think is not good enough), “it’s shameful and a disgrace” camp.

This - Everyone WANTS to know more about what's happening but I guess some of us are better at handling that emotion.

[MackworthRamIsGod]

33 minutes ago, Gaspode said:

Has there ever been a time when there have been so many self-entitled muppets posting on these boards? And I don’t just mean the relative newbies but also some of the older folk who should know better.

Crying like a bunch of school kids because Mel won’t tell them what’s going on with the takeover (ever heard of confidentiality?); wanting a protest outside the ground - great idea in the current COVID climate - make the club look even worse, spread the disease and kill a few folk into the bargain; demanding we splurge millions on players and then constantly moaning because the club doesn’t have any money and has breached FFP......etc, etc. Pathetic.....

I’d almost welcome relegation if it meant we could get back to a hardcore of fans that actually support the club come what may - hopefully the fly by night folk that latched onto us due to the Lampard/Rooney factor will go back to ‘supporting’ their distant favourite PL clubs and the other moaners can take a good hard look in the mirror and decide whether they are following the club for any reason other than as an excuse to constantly whinge and complain.....

The thing I find on this forum is, the so call doom merchants make their points but I very rarely see them personally attacking anyone. You may not agree with what they say, but so what, opinions are like R Soles.

The so called happy clappers, I constantly see "pathetic post", "ridiculous post", "idiot" etc.

I think some of the people who genuinely believe they are the optimists actually have anger issues and cant bare for someone to think differently or have a slightly negative view.  They would rather bury their heads in sands and most probably spend the days sniffing their own farts to help protect the environment.

I maintain, we are in the worse position the club has been in for 30 years. Some fans didnt see the Jim Smith era, or even the Billy Davies promotion, so for them this last couple of years must be truly horrific.  I'm at a loss to what would be deemed acceptable fans to be annoyed or even angry at the demise of our club?

 

[GenBr]

6 hours ago, Newcastle Fan said:

Hello again lads and lasses

I’ve just read an article in the Athletic - DCFC haven’t been paying the players’ wages?  Apparently the club were relying on BZG to takeover and pick up the tab?  That’s a pretty risky strategy given their previous ...

Until that article, I must admit I’d forgotten about it - coverage in the press has died off.  Has Midhat turned up talking poo yet?  Around this time with the ‘takeover’ of NUFC, two things were happening - absolute radio silence from BZG (they just dropped off the radar), and rumours about approaches being made to venture capitalists in the US & Japan to fund BZG’s takeover (a leveraged buyout - for those unfamiliar with this, Burnley’s takeover is the latest example.  Skint/miserly new owners borrow cash to buy the club against the value of the club, who’s revenue is then used to pay off the loan + interest).  Though I’d imagine that any venture capitalist looked at BZG’s laughable website (replete with easily disprovable boasts, which appeared to be made by a sixth form IT student) would’ve ran a mile.

To be fair to them, they didn’t get as far as actually bidding for Liverpool or Newcastle.  They asked how much the clubs would cost, then Midhat boasted about buying the clubs (still waiting on that one).  He gave a timescale of a few days - then disappeared off the face of the earth.  So either the EFL has the worst O&D test in the world (possible, given Blackpool’s plight), or they must have been able to show your owner something.  Or he’s a gullible buffoon (rather than Ashley, who’s an astute but nasty piece of work).

Hope you’re all not pinning too much on BZG to come through - DCFC’s league position looks precarious, and I’m guessing you’d be looking to recruit sharpish.  Terrible that DCFC are sat where they are in the table - the last thing the club needs is anyone farting around with the club for a bit of ego-stroking.

The EFL lets anyone own a football club - checks are negligible. See Portsmouth, Wigan, Blackpool, Bolton to name just a few. If they want to use revenue to repay debts it is going to take them 100 years to do so in the Championship and even longer in League 1.

Doesnt seem like Mel wants to fund us anymore, so our only option is pray this goes through. I dont want to think about the consequences if it collapses - we will be in deep poo

[EraniosSocks]

Just a quick update from the proposed fan takeover, I’m willing to now forward the mrs car also. She don’t know yet but.. let’s get our club back

[Ram-Alf]

10 hours ago, kevinhectoring said:

And if you were paid an enormous amount? And had an enormous amount in the bank? And you knew the owner could afford to pay you, and would do so very soon ? And if the owner as well as your childhood hero and his ex-England manager boss explained to you that there were good reasons for the employer not paying you this month because of a monumental deal affecting the employer? And if they asked you please just to give the club a few more days at this time  ?
 

 I think you’d say “ok that’s fine.”  And focus on the next game.  

Ah another 48hrs, Imminent, Just waiting for the Lawyers to find their keys to the office, Press send key on the computer is broken, I'm one of the least not fussed about this supposed takeover, But not to have your wages paid into your bank smacks of a couldn't care less attitude from all concerned.