The men who sell football

[Pearl Ram]

Already being covered elsewhere on the forum me owd.

[jimtastic56]

Be interesting telly , this will.

[Carnero]

Thanks Ben, it's a good job you're always on the pulse with these things or we'd likely miss them!

[ThePrisoner]

Mel on it ten seconds in. ?

[RoyMac5]

10 minutes ago, Ambitious said:

I’m going to wait to watch the documentary, but based on the snippet from the podcast I just found myself feeling sad about it all. 

Derby County is the heartbeat of a community and here we are, again, getting dragged through the mud when thousands of people have already voted with their feet. People are genuinely sick of it all. Mel has surrounded himself with bad characters throughout his tenure here and has continued that trend to led us down the path we found ourselves now. I genuinely wish he stopped thinking he was the cleverest guy in the room, stopped looking at ways we can gain advantages financially and just focus on running the club the best possible way within our budget. 

I appreciate a lot of what he’s done for the club and the city, but it’s heartbreaking to see what we’ve become. He’s not a stupid man. He knew what he was doing when he got into bed with someone like Samuelson, a known chancer and quite frankly despicable human-being.  

How does all this help us (as a club) move forward? It's nothing that we didn't know. The bloke in question had been talked about on the forum already, it's just raking over old coals.

[hintonsboots]

14 minutes ago, RoyMac5 said:

 it's just raking over old coals.

Cliche of the day award?

[Ambitious]

14 minutes ago, RoyMac5 said:

How does all this help us (as a club) move forward? It's nothing that we didn't know. The bloke in question had been talked about on the forum already, it's just raking over old coals.

We will not move forward as a club until a new owner is at the helm and had a chance to make his mark. It’s just disappointing to see Mel putting his trust in these characters, twinned with two failed takeovers to two different charlatans. Along with everything else. It’s just a poo situation and the sooner we can put all this behind us and shelf the ‘Mel Morris era’ as one that had highs and lows, the better. 

[gccrowdpleaser]

1 hour ago, mike93rh said:

That doesn't mean most reputable businesses choose to associate with those notorious for being the most shady. 

If you're looking at football to be reputable and some kind of moral guide I suggest you repoint your compass.  Next you'll be surprised that MP's fiddle their expenses or that Sir Phillip Green could leave a pension fund hole. 

[rams_man]

2 hours ago, gccrowdpleaser said:

Forest wrote off £40m in one season in that exact way 

QPR have also done done the exact same thing. 

As have Stoke.

Very true, it just doesn't look good with the other things they were already throwing Derby's way at the time.

The money Mel has put into this club I will always see as a positive as it has gave us a cat 1 academy.

I just hope he can find the right buyers for him and the club.

 

[cosmic]

I’ve just finished watching it. Wasn’t as damning as I thought it would be.

The whole documentary is about how this Samuelson bloke can hide the identities of dodgy/criminal investors when buying a football club and help launder money. Derby just happen to be one of the options he suggested because we were/are for sale at the time. 

Interestingly, Mel Morris hired Samuelson to get Derby some new investors towards back in the Lampard days. Documentary shows this fake investor (undercover agent) meeting Morris at Pride Park the day Lampard becomes Chelsea manager. Samuelson was also involved in the “fake” Sheikh bid - which shows you how long Samuelson and Morris were working together. Statement from Morris at the end says we’ve not been conducting any business with Samuelson for a long time. So maybe since that deal went through? Although the Alonso bid had mystery investors that fit the way Samuelson explained how he hides things. 

So overall I don’t think we have a lot to worry about (aside from the general future of football ownership!).

One thing that may hurt us is Morris explaining another cute way for the new owners to take advantage of FFP by having him stay on as an unnamed investor who maintains the debts. Saying he doesn’t benefit, but the club does. Which goes to show he’s still trying to do his best for Derby County, despite our current ill feeling towards him. But that little bit of footage will probably harm our already fragile relationship with the EFL. Will we ever catch a break!
 

 

[MACKWORTHRAM]

The EFL aren't coming out of this good at all are they.

[baiano27]

This only scratches the surface of the murky world of football. Nothing surprised me as there are plenty more samuelsons and hunters leaching from the game.

The one thing it highlights is that the major problem is the owners test and this needs more focus than FFP from the EFL. I have some sympathy with the EFL on that having been through a similar process myself but that's where the sympathy ends. FFP isn't working and needs to be looked at again. 

As @cosmic mentioned I feared it would look much worse on the club. Mel's explanation on the loans/FFP are within the rules and just highlight why FFP was not well thought through and executed properly.

[BramcoteRam84]

So I’ve watched it and it’s a non-story. The timing is annoying and I certainly think the loophole Mel is discussing in the documentary might be closed now as a result, a loophole used by the likes of Forest and other clubs. As for will it affect our ongoing case, it was from 2 years ago, lots of water under the bridge since then and it appears the club are certainly trying to work with the EFL now. Some parties may try and use it, notably the man why the perm and just for men rinse from Boro but doubt it will have much affect. 
 

Mel was certainly still looking to do his best for the club then, whether he still has the same desire and passion or is just worn down by it all, who knows. 

Now for more pressing matters which is lifting the embargo, to do that we need Mel to confirm he will continue to fund the club if he cannot continue which remains unclear and the biggest concern right now.

[BramcoteRam84]

1 hour ago, Spanish said:

I don’t think he looks now like the guy who would never sell the club down the river.  I am very worried about the state of the club and it’s relationship with efl and I don’t believe these revelations will have helped us.  If he wasn’t one of our own I imagine he wouldn’t be getting the support he is getting

Changed your view? 
IMO nothing really bad regarding Mel in that. As I said without watching it, Samuelson in the story and the number of people and time he’s spent around football made him credible and enabled him to build trust. He brokered deals for Reading and Villa, would’ve got Everton if not for a newspaper leak. Fortunately in our case they were investigative journalists with no intention to buy the club, he stuck with him for the Bin Zayed deal and probably ended the association when that failed. 

[MikeS]

It's probably severely dented Samuelson's chance to do business with football clubs in future. Up-front, anyway. It will probably not help us, just being associated with this guy and the overall tenor of the programme. Just unfortunate Mel chose to consider doing business with this company two years ago. The man did have a seemingly useful track record at the time. Anyway, the EFL didn't come out  of it, smelling of roses.

[alexxxxx]

Here's the documentary for those interested. 

[i-Ram]

32 minutes ago, MACKWORTHRAM said:

The EFL aren't coming out of this good at all are they.

Why?

[Brammie Steve]

There’s a rotten smell about all this!

[alexxxxx]

55 minutes ago, MACKWORTHRAM said:

The EFL aren't coming out of this good at all are they.

Seems like they do more due diligence than the Republic of Cyprus....

[Mr Tibbs]

This sort of stuff is obviously not exclusive to Derby County, it’ll be rife through the sporting world. But why isn’t it Luton Towns chairman or Huddersfield’s owner getting dragged in all this bad light? Derby County is a poo magnet at the moment. Not a good look for the club, again. 

Amateur hour to be getting caught red handed like this. If we were going to collaborate with cowboys then we could have at least picked some competent ones.