Derby County Administration (with the slight possibility of Liquidation still there)

[Addingham Ram]

39 minutes ago, angieram said:

I think the EFL may be the difficulty here because the "right and proper owner" test has been tightened really only in the last couple of years. 

I am sure there are owners all across football that would fail the current test. 

I don't doubt you are right, but under the terms of the administration (if I understand what has been posted recently by others), I believe there is a 28 day period to allow the fans to come together and possibly buy the club. Considering the size of Derby County as a business, with a wage bill in the £millions, how could any group of fans ever be pass the "right and proper owners" test?

[RadioactiveWaste]

13 minutes ago, Stive Pesley said:

Maybe not that long? We're looking at League One anyway. I think the EFL teams would vote to allow us to join L2.

A "Derby County" with 30k fans would not be a practical proposition for non league football in terms of facilities

I've honestly no idea where the new-co Derby County would have to start - if "elected" to join league 2 I'd consider that a very good outcome. It's also possible it starts at the very bottom tier as a new from scratch team has tried to join the non-league pyramid. I think you're right, the practicalities of it being Derby County would probably mean it starts a few rungs up from that. Possiby the conference (on the one below that - no idea what those divisions are named now).

And it's probably slightly different if an investment group buys the rights to Derby County and forms new-co DCFC (a la Rangers) to a fan based phoenix club (AFC Derby County), even though in theory both are brand new football teams looking to join the league pyramid at the best level they can be allowed in.

In terms of Pride Park - There's a big white elephant outside Darlington. If Mel isn't careful he might find his shiny "event space" isn't all he thought it would be as an investment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Darlington_Arena

[angieram]

Just now, Addingham Ram said:

I don't doubt you are right, but under the terms of the administration (if I understand what has been posted recently by others), I believe there is a 28 day period to allow the fans to come together and possibly buy the club. Considering the size of Derby County as a business, with a wage bill in the £millions, how could any group of fans ever be pass the "right and proper owners" test?

I don't think we could. In my opinion it would be madness. As I keep saying, football is broken. 

[GenBr]

43 minutes ago, Unlucky Alf said:

Moorways stadium in Derby...Council owned I believe, There's been talk for years about DCFC buying and developing this.

Could be a goid idea.

If we do have to phoenix we could look at building a stadium gradually. New stands as we get promoted up the league and as we can afford it

[DCFC1388]

I may have got this completely wrong but from what I have read don't the new owners only need to pay 25-35% of the debt to creditors such as HMRC, Cocu & maybe even Keogh?

If so, if they were originally interested in buying us and clearing the £60m rumoured debts which is the deal Mel was wanting, they could potentially get us by only having to pay maybe half of that debt, maybe even less?

So as an investor looking at it, you would see we're likely to get a point deduction anyway for P&S breaches which would likely put us in League 1, so why not wait for us to go into administration which confirms relegation but potentially starts the P&S from scratch with no looming point deductions (that's what the negotiations were about) as well as saving money towards covering the debts.

Doing it now also means no fire sale of players meaning we may actually get more money for any players we do sell.

So for example, they were willing to originally pay 60m. Now they pay off 30m of debts (25% of which needs to be paid within 2 years to avoid further points deductions), they're 30m up. Loss in revenue for relegation covered by that initial 30m and then if we sold a couple of players maybe for 10-15m (with it not being a fire sale) that could potentially give the new owner 40-45m to cover relegation losses, the admin charges, day to day running which the monthly cost will reduce if debts cleared/reduced + rebuilding the squad ready for League 1.

[Addingham Ram]

2 minutes ago, angieram said:

I don't think we could. In my opinion it would be madness. As I keep saying, football is broken. 

Indeed it is.

Like him or loathe him, Simon Jordan has been saying this on TalkSport for some time now. He also says there isn't sufficient desire from within the game to change it.

Either the government instill some regulation, or the game we love will continue to spiral out of control.

DCFC certainly won't be the last club facing financial meltdown. I wonder how many more Championship clubs will end up with points deductions before the season is out.

Wouldn't it be so Derby for a number of other clubs to get points deducted, and we somehow stay up?

[rammieib]

17 minutes ago, StarterForTen said:

He doesn't need to sell the stadium to the Club; a 99-year lease on a 'pepper-corn' rent will do the trick!

Except, if you were a potential owner coming in, would you buy the club if the Stadium asset wasn't included?

The Stadium (pre-covid) was creating circa £10m of income (excluding ticket sales). It's a huge revenue stream and if you don't own it, you're losing a lot of that revenue without a minefield of commercial contracts. For instance - say Greggs pay £50k a year rent, that'll go to the stadium, not to Derby County. Say the Yard, a business in its own right also pay £50k a year rent, now we're at £100k and so on....

It adds up and its money which could be going to Gellaw 202 or whatever they're called, not Derby County.

You can absolutely see why this is a minefield.

[Spanish]

1 hour ago, Unlucky Alf said:

A Government Department which deals in Billions if not Trillions of £s, My Daughter is a Senior offshore VAT Investigator, The stories she tells me on the QT are shocking on how debts are written off as the owner/company have no assets allegedly, Her team worked on the Harry Rednapp tax case...they all thought they had won, Until the Jury fell for the "i'm not that clever and my dog ate all my invoices"

I'm currently being chased for my deceased Brothers tax(self employed)from 2019/2020 and 2020/2021, All because I had to go to his bank stop all payments and sign a form stating I was his personel representative.

PS they wont get a penny from myself.

 

surely they can only come after you in your limited capacity as an executor

[Stive Pesley]

2 minutes ago, RadioactiveWaste said:

I've honestly no idea where the new-co Derby County would have to start - if "elected" to join league 2 I'd consider that a very good outcome. It's also possible it starts at the very bottom tier as a new from scratch team has tried to join the non-league pyramid. I think you're right, the practicalities of it being Derby County would probably mean it starts a few rungs up from that.

I was thinking in financial terms the other EFL teams wouldn't have to think twice about electing us - as for a very high percentage of them, we're one of their most lucrative away days (and would also bring in a fair few choice "selected for TV matches" their way )

But yeah - ultimately who knows!

Darlington is an interesting one as they failed to agree a CVA and were liquidated in 2012. Not sure what rule this refers to exactly but

"A new club was immediately formed and moved to Blackwell Meadows stadium but the FA ruled that, as a new club, it must have a different playing name from the expelled club. The name chosen was Darlington 1883, and that club was placed in the Northern League Division One, the ninth tier of English football,"

They were already in the Conference though, so they moved to the bottom tier of Non-league

Rangers wiki page also says something interesting about CVA

"Charles Green agreed a deal with the administrators of The Rangers Football Club plc to purchase the company for £8.5 million if a proposed CVA was agreed or to purchase its business and assets for a £5.5million if the proposed CVA were to be rejected."

What this suggests is that if the club is cheaper to buy when in administration with a CVA - it will be even cheaper if the CVA can't be agreed. It's going to get interesting, if the club can be bought for several million pounds less but in L2 rather than L1, there may be potential investors who see that as a better option ?

 

 

 

[curb]

16 minutes ago, RadioactiveWaste said:

I've honestly no idea where the new-co Derby County would have to start - if "elected" to join league 2 I'd consider that a very good outcome. It's also possible it starts at the very bottom tier as a new from scratch team has tried to join the non-league pyramid. I think you're right, the practicalities of it being Derby County would probably mean it starts a few rungs up from that. Possiby the conference (on the one below that - no idea what those divisions are named now).

And it's probably slightly different if an investment group buys the rights to Derby County and forms new-co DCFC (a la Rangers) to a fan based phoenix club (AFC Derby County), even though in theory both are brand new football teams looking to join the league pyramid at the best level they can be allowed in.

In terms of Pride Park - There's a big white elephant outside Darlington. If Mel isn't careful he might find his shiny "event space" isn't all he thought it would be as an investment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Darlington_Arena

Groundshare with Mickleover?

i wouldn’t be surprised if Don Amott would consider changing the name of Mickleover FC to Derby City or something to cash in on a new fan base. 

They’d have to stop playing in red for me though. 

[WhiteHorseRam]

1 minute ago, curb said:

Groundshare with Mickleover?

In all honesty, just reading this is appalling.

 

 

How did we come to this?

 

[TheresOnlyWanChope]

7 minutes ago, WhiteHorseRam said:

In all honesty, just reading this is appalling.

 

 

How did we come to this?

 

Appalling enough thinking of Derby City...It should always be Derby county. AFC Derby County etc. No idea how I would feel about a phoenix club. Might back it, might just lose interest in football for a while. But yeh, groundshare with Mickleover? Nah. Awful

[G STAR RAM]

48 minutes ago, i-Ram said:

There will be long, long, queue of lenders desperate to get hold of some of that Stadium Mortgage action. 

As for Mel personally paying off MSD without legal action:

If we have a sustainable model why would there not be a bank willing to support us?

A mortgage of say £30m against an asset valued at £80m +.

Once again there could be a clause of repayable immediately if club promoted.

As for MM/Gellaw paying off the MSD loans, why would they not want to do it? They have a charge against the asset anyway.

If they pay off the loans it costs £30m? If the club goes bust it costs them £80m.

[Sweetness34]

11 minutes ago, TheresOnlyWanChope said:

Appalling enough thinking of Derby City...It should always be Derby county. AFC Derby County etc. No idea how I would feel about a phoenix club. Might back it, might just lose interest in football for a while. But yeh, groundshare with Mickleover? Nah. Awful

A phoenix club in the same colours same badge and retain our honours I'd be fine with. I wouldn't even see it as a new club. Just the same one

Much like AFC Wimbledon

[Tombo]

18 minutes ago, TheresOnlyWanChope said:

Appalling enough thinking of Derby City...It should always be Derby county. AFC Derby County etc. No idea how I would feel about a phoenix club. Might back it, might just lose interest in football for a while. But yeh, groundshare with Mickleover? Nah. Awful

I don't know, I mean we are a city club really, not a county one. We have fans across all of Derbyshire but I tend to find the strongest mutterings about the club from the city.

Plus we are still DCFC if it's Derby City.

Plus Bradley Johnson will come and play for us, he gave us his word

[atherstoneram]

3 hours ago, Alpha said:

Is there anything stopping Mel from using his personal wealth to pay off the unsecured creditors during/after this mess? 

I'm guessing so

I just couldn't imagine watching small businesses and sole traders suffer because of me when I have huge personal fortune. 

If he's truly taken us into admin to push for a buyer and to rid himself of the money sink that DCFC are then it would weigh heavily on his conscience. 

If he's just decided to wash his hands of the whole thing and wants out with his fortune intact then I guess they're collateral 

There has been nothing up to this point stopping MM using his personal wealth to pay off anything but he has chosen not too,if he had we wouldn't be in the situation we are now in.

[Crewton]

38 minutes ago, rammieib said:

Except, if you were a potential owner coming in, would you buy the club if the Stadium asset wasn't included?

Leeds ownership has changed 3 times I think since Ken Bates sold the stadium in the early noughties. It was only bought back in 2017 by the current owners.

Stamford Bridge had some weird covenant on it where the pitch, the turnstiles, and the naming rights of the club are owned by Chelsea Pitch Owners, an organisation set up to prevent the stadium from being purchased by property developers. All redevelopment has had to be agreed with them, they are effectively Chelsea's Landlord and even the financial power of Abramovich has failed to persuade them to sell the club the Freehold.

[TheresOnlyWanChope]

5 minutes ago, Tombo said:

I don't know, I mean we are a city club really, not a county one. We have fans across all of Derbyshire but I tend to find the strongest mutterings about the club from the city.

Plus we are still DCFC if it's Derby City.

Plus Bradley Johnson will come and play for us, he gave us his word

I think City just dilutes the identity. Its Derby County not Derby City. May not be a big deal for some people but it wouldnt feel the same. Aside from that City is just a crap name for a team. That Hull chairman was right! 

[atherstoneram]

3 hours ago, Alpha said:

I don't think they'll ask his opinion, will they? 

They'll literally do everything they need to do to keep the club alive. They won't care what league or what the morale. They'll sell Knight, the flat screen tv's, office chairs and pay next to nothing (or nothing) to unsecured creditors to make sure secure creditors get paid? They just do whatever it takes. 

Be nice if a buyer comes to the rescue but I imagine they'll wait and buy the club when we don't have a pot left to piss in

Unless somebody wants to part with tens of millions to buy a club that doesn't own its ground or training facilities, has -12 more points and no senior players of any value. Fingers crossed that somebody is that mad. 

If somebody is that mad would you want them in charge of the club.

[Barney1991]

I just hope it’s a consortium that buys us not just one person. Have a proper board made up who can challenge each other’s decisions. The one problem Mel had is he didn’t have a board to challenge him on his decisions. To say no we shouldn’t be doing this we should do that. Instead he had a yes man ceo finance supposedly guru who messed around with our amortisation and has got us crippled when instead of running along with it should have challenged Morris. If had been the case and Morris hadn’t of got a free reign I don’t think we would be in this mess. Instead Morris just did whatever he wanted and now we are in the doom