EFL appeal

[Ted McMinn Football Genius]

This won’t be taken lying down, providing we’ve operated within the parameters defined prior to accounts being posted (as we have been lead to believe). 
The laws of the land can’t do anything other than find in our favour. Yes we’ve bent the rules to point of fracture but still haven’t worked outside of any definition of the EFL rules. 
The EFL should be bitch slapped for working retrospectively to enforce their and a few individuals will on another club. 
 

[kevinhectoring]

4 hours ago, Ghost of Clough said:

We aren't sheep...

Lol.  It’s a brave call by the club auditor though to sign off on a policy that is likely to be beneficial to the P&S calcs, if we’re the only club that employs it. Not to mention a brave call by the board. There’s safety in numbers
 

I wonder whether other clubs considered following our approach when it was endorsed by the DC. Seems to me it would result in chaos, because of the subjectivity involved.
 

which in turn suggests that this was perhaps a policy decision: ie despite the detailed analysis by the LAT of Pope’s evidence and of his cross-examination, maybe the decision simply reflects that P&S should be a level playing field (haha) and that the Derby way leads to a free for all. 

[duncanjwitham]

10 minutes ago, Albert said:

For all the many things that Mel's regime have made a mess of, ironically, the one which will have the most direct consequences, actually seems to be the one where their ducks were in order. 

But ultimately, the fact we didn't use our own expert witness is what has cost us.  Which is our screwup.  If we'd found literally anyone with accounting experience to stand up and say what we did was was fine under the regs, we'd probably have been okay. The appeals panel would have seen 2 experts with differing opinions, and probably had to go with the original panel decision.  But because we didn't have our own expert, they had to go with the only expert in the room.  

[ariotofmyown]

11 minutes ago, Ghost of Clough said:

2 goals are scored. Both start with Roos from a goal kick, and end with Waghorn finding the bottom corner. 
The first is passed between the back four 30 times, slowly make our way up the pitch, keep passing it around the edge of the box, then Wahorn runs on to a little through ball and finds the back of the net.
The second is a long punt upfield. Kazim wins a flick on, Waghorn picks it up and scores with his second touch.
Both have the same start, the same end, but different middles. The goals would be described as "not remotely similar". 

You have a plan A and a plan B. Can you be our manager?

[Indy]

13 minutes ago, Ghost of Clough said:

It's a case of our amortisation policy giving the club the ability to control when and how much amortisation falls into each year. The other methods (excluding impairment) are pretty much set in stone from the day you sign them.

All methods do exactly what you've outlined - get from the same starting point, and end at the same point. "Not remotely similar" in this case would be the finer details of the policy rather than the overall purpose.

 

2 goals are scored. Both start with Roos from a goal kick, and end with Waghorn finding the bottom corner. 
The first is passed between the back four 30 times, slowly make our way up the pitch, keep passing it around the edge of the box, then Wahorn runs on to a little through ball and finds the back of the net.
The second is a long punt upfield. Kazim wins a flick on, Waghorn picks it up and scores with his second touch.
Both have the same start, the same end, but different middles. The goals would be described as "not remotely similar". 

But both goals are allowed within the rules of the game as the process in the middle is not tightly defined. 

[Grumpy Git]

14 minutes ago, Ghost of Clough said:

2 goals are scored. Both start with Roos from a goal kick, and end with Waghorn finding the bottom corner. 

The first is passed between the back four 30 times, slowly make our way up the pitch, keep passing it around the edge of the box, then Wahorn runs on to a little through ball and finds the back of the net.
The second is a long punt upfield. Kazim wins a flick on, Waghorn picks it up and scores with his second touch.

I've just entered a parallel universe (again)!

Edited May 13, 2021 by Grumpy Git

[ariotofmyown]

40 minutes ago, 86 Hair Islands said:

So essentially our player amortisation policies were examined and found to be FRS102 compliant by a DC including an accounting expert. Subsequently and under appeal, a panel devoid of any accounting specialist, has decided otherwise.

In true EFL fashion, the 'expert analysis' could be appealed, but the decision made without any such input, can't be. 

Welcome to modern football folks! 

To be fair to the EFL, their accountancy experts were busy on another case. They were lipreading footage of an alleged racial abuse case. The accused got off as he only said "kshd off back to where hsg nahe skro, you aodbk ransparf aknd q watermelon mkelw".

[G STAR RAM]

To be fair I think we should celebrate the fact that our governing body show expertise in such a wide range of areas.

I mean they've shown themselves to have more knowledge of property valuation than one of the biggest commercial chartered surveyors in the world, better knowledge of accounting and auditing than a firm of chartered accountants, better knowledge of the application of accounting policies than the ICAEW. Basically, the only area where they seem to lack any creditable expertise is in running the football league.

[Van der MoodHoover]

32 minutes ago, Ghost of Clough said:

It's a case of our amortisation policy giving the club the ability to control when and how much amortisation falls into each year. The other methods (excluding impairment) are pretty much set in stone from the day you sign them.

All methods do exactly what you've outlined - get from the same starting point, and end at the same point. "Not remotely similar" in this case would be the finer details of the policy rather than the overall purpose.

 

2 goals are scored. Both start with Roos from a goal kick, and end with Waghorn finding the bottom corner. 
The first is passed between the back four 30 times, slowly make our way up the pitch, keep passing it around the edge of the box, then Wahorn runs on to a little through ball and finds the back of the net.
The second is a long punt upfield. Kazim wins a flick on, Waghorn picks it up and scores with his second touch.
Both have the same start, the same end, but different middles. The goals would be described as "not remotely similar". 

Hmm. I get the analogy, but it needs refining to simulate more closely the boundaries imposed by basic accounting rules. 

If you are told that you have a maximum of 3 or 4 touches to get from one goal to the other (simulating a contract duration). No backwards touches. Have to hit the goal. 

Then I would expect the reduction in allowed variability to result in goals looking much more similar. 

As I mused, I found the use of those words unjustified, alarmist, and loaded with sinister innuendo. 

But its an independent EFL panel so it's all fine, right? 

?

[SamUltraRam]

Let's hope the EFL are using their 'experts' to write an explanation to the other clubs why they are only giving us a slap on the wrist and nothing more 

[CBRammette]

45 minutes ago, duncanjwitham said:

But ultimately, the fact we didn't use our own expert witness is what has cost us.  Which is our screwup.  If we'd found literally anyone with accounting experience to stand up and say what we did was was fine under the regs, we'd probably have been okay. The appeals panel would have seen 2 experts with differing opinions, and probably had to go with the original panel decision.  But because we didn't have our own expert, they had to go with the only expert in the room.  

Would be interested to know why we didnt do that, as you say seems obvious and bad decision but one of many so what is one more!

[richinspain]

50 minutes ago, duncanjwitham said:

But ultimately, the fact we didn't use our own expert witness is what has cost us.  Which is our screwup.  If we'd found literally anyone with accounting experience to stand up and say what we did was was fine under the regs, we'd probably have been okay. The appeals panel would have seen 2 experts with differing opinions, and probably had to go with the original panel decision.  But because we didn't have our own expert, they had to go with the only expert in the room.  

To be fair to the club, why would we think that we would need an expert witness to say eactly what the expert witness plus the expert "judge" on the previous panel had said?

Oh, wait. It's the EFL we're dealing with!

[duncanjwitham]

8 minutes ago, richinspain said:

To be fair to the club, why would we think that we would need an expert witness to say eactly what the expert witness plus the expert "judge" on the previous panel had said?

Oh, wait. It's the EFL we're dealing with!

This was the previous panel.  The EFL put up Professor Pope who apparently knows nothing about day-to-day accounting. We put up nobody.  The only thing the appeals panel could do was basically say if the previous panel had made a technical mistake (i.e. got the law  or procedure wrong).  They decided that the previous panel hade made a mistake in ignoring Professor Pope because he was the only expert in the room and so accepted his word as gospel.  It basically came down to a matter of accounting expertise and we had no experts to argue our corner at all.  The only explanations I can think of are we either didn't understand the rules of the game we were playing, we couldn't be bothered to do it properly, or we tried to cheap out and get by without an expert. And I don't know which of those is worst.

[Archied]

23 hours ago, Angry Ram said:

I've met him, looks exactly like George TBF. 

Roper ?

[RandomAccessMemory]

3 minutes ago, duncanjwitham said:

This was the previous panel.  The EFL put up Professor Pope who apparently knows nothing about day-to-day accounting. We put up nobody.  The only thing the appeals panel could do was basically say if the previous panel had made a technical mistake (i.e. got the law  or procedure wrong).  They decided that the previous panel hade made a mistake in ignoring Professor Pope because he was the only expert in the room and so accepted his word as gospel.  It basically came down to a matter of accounting expertise and we had no experts to argue our corner at all.  The only explanations I can think of are we either didn't understand the rules of the game we were playing, we couldn't be bothered to do it properly, or we tried to cheap out and get by without an expert. And I don't know which of those is worst.

Or as there was an accountant on the IDC and we knew that he would actually understand accounting and we felt as it was completely in line with the rules we didn’t need to have someone there just to labour that point to someone who would already be aware of it?

[Indy]

1 minute ago, RandomAccessMemory said:

Or as there was an accountant on the IDC and we knew that he would actually understand accounting and we felt as it was completely in line with the rules we didn’t need to have someone there just to labour that point to someone who would already be aware of it?

That’s what I thought. A combination of the fact that the amortisation charge was notified to them quite late, and then the fact that the charge related to accounts that had been audited and signed off as compliant, and considered by a panel including accounting expertise. 

[duncanjwitham]

Just now, RandomAccessMemory said:

Or as there was an accountant on the IDC and we knew that he would actually understand accounting and we felt as it was completely in line with the rules we didn’t need to have someone there just to labour that point to someone who would already be aware of it?

That may have been the case, but that comes back to not knowing the rules of the game. The report from the appeal makes it clear - our accountant was there as a factual witness, not an expert one (i.e. there to speak on what we did, not what the law/accounting rules are, so his evidence on accounting regs was worthless), and presumably the same applies to the accountant on the panel.

[RoyMac5]

2 minutes ago, duncanjwitham said:

That may have been the case, but that comes back to not knowing the rules of the game. The report from the appeal makes it clear - our accountant was there as a factual witness, not an expert one (i.e. there to speak on what we did, not what the law/accounting rules are, so his evidence on accounting regs was worthless), and presumably the same applies to the accountant on the panel.

Perhaps we couldn’t find an expert witness who agreed with our ‘point of view’? 

[rynny]

15 minutes ago, duncanjwitham said:

This was the previous panel.  The EFL put up Professor Pope who apparently knows nothing about day-to-day accounting. We put up nobody.  The only thing the appeals panel could do was basically say if the previous panel had made a technical mistake (i.e. got the law  or procedure wrong).  They decided that the previous panel hade made a mistake in ignoring Professor Pope because he was the only expert in the room and so accepted his word as gospel.  It basically came down to a matter of accounting expertise and we had no experts to argue our corner at all.  The only explanations I can think of are we either didn't understand the rules of the game we were playing, we couldn't be bothered to do it properly, or we tried to cheap out and get by without an expert. And I don't know which of those is worst.

We didn't know they were going to add the amortisation policy on the charge until they revealed to the world. We tried to argue at the original hearing that we didn't have time to get an expert as we didn't have sufficient time to bring one in and get them up to date with what we do. 

[Eddie]

4 minutes ago, duncanjwitham said:

That may have been the case, but that comes back to not knowing the rules of the game. The report from the appeal makes it clear - our accountant was there as a factual witness, not an expert one (i.e. there to speak on what we did, not what the law/accounting rules are, so his evidence on accounting regs was worthless), and presumably the same applies to the accountant on the panel.

If the original practice was signed off and accepted as compliant, then subsequently found not to be compliant, that simply means that the rules of the game were changed retrospectively.