Mel Morris fan club

[Van der MoodHoover]

19 minutes ago, Chris_Martin said:

lets say he played 40 games a season, that's £600,000 a season. Over a 4 year contract would be roughly £2.4m. Plus the initial cost of £2m is actually a great deal for a player of Thorne's ability. However, it was completely reliant on us being in the premier league to afford it & his wages as well. Just another example of Mel's all or nothing gamble. 

 

He was signed before Mel took control. 

Remember the massive "Game of Thorne" thread and what a feeling it was when we got him. 

It was a Sam rush deal. 

[DCFC Kicks]

11 hours ago, Rev said:

That was on the podcast with George Thorne from a while back. 

It's a deal that looks terrible in hindsight, given his misfortune.

However, I think getting George Thorne for an initial layout of £2m, rising to a maximum of £3.5m depending on appearances was, at the time, a bargain.

 

9 hours ago, Chris_Martin said:

lets say he played 40 games a season, that's £600,000 a season. Over a 4 year contract would be roughly £2.4m. Plus the initial cost of £2m is actually a great deal for a player of Thorne's ability. However, it was completely reliant on us being in the premier league to afford it & his wages as well. Just another example of Mel's all or nothing gamble. 

 

At the time yes, but it's always "at the time" with Mel. My point was that he was on a 4 year deal. It was fine for the first 2 years of it (where he happened to be injured). As @Chris_Martin says, it was yet another gamble and completely reliant on us getting promoted. Mel must have known that if we didn't get promoted we couldn't afford to play him for the last 2 years of his contract if he also continued to throw cash at other players, which he did!

[RoyMac5]

33 minutes ago, DCFC Kicks said:

 

At the time yes, but it's always "at the time" with Mel. My point was that he was on a 4 year deal. It was fine for the first 2 years of it (where he happened to be injured). As @Chris_Martin says, it was yet another gamble and completely reliant on us getting promoted. Mel must have known that if we didn't get promoted we couldn't afford to play him for the last 2 years of his contract if he also continued to throw cash at other players, which he did!

It wasn't really the same kind of gamble as Anya and Blackman though was it.

[angieram]

1 hour ago, RoyMac5 said:

It wasn't really the same kind of gamble as Anya and Blackman though was it.

I don't think it was any gamble at all, based on how much we'd have sold him to a Prem club for if he'd kept fit and we didn't go up. We knew how good he was, we'd already tried before we buyed! 

He was a classy player, really breaks my heart that injuries did for him so young. And that's no-one's fault, before you all start @ing me! 

[Ambitious]

On 25/09/2021 at 13:07, Malty said:

Mel Morris is getting such a hard time at the moment from everyone in the press and around the club. Maybe they are right to be blaming Mel for many of our sins, but I’m just not 100% convinced that it’s justified.

 

What is he guilty of exactly….

 

So he spent £200m trying to get DCFC to the premier league (tell me if you had that much money that you wouldn’t - even for a second think about doing that for Derby)

 

He spent a fortune on players some of which have not been particularly successful (as many many chairman have across the leagues)

 

He supported our academy, growing young players that have gone on to be sold or are playing in or around our first team - with more on their heels.

 

He gambled again by bringing a premier league legend in as manager and nearly made it, only losing in the play off final.

 

He stretched every rule he could whether that’s accounting wise by pushing expenditure into the academy rather than the football team, playing with agents fees, playing with amortisation, arranging a real with a betting company and selling the stadium to himself. He did those things to try and defeat financial fair play. If others around him were stronger, perhaps they would have convinced him otherwise. I have worked for chief execs like this and you have to be strong to challenge. With any rules people will try and find loopholes and many accountants make a career and a huge amount of money out of doing just that. I’m not saying it’s right, I’m just saying that if there is not enough challenge then people will bend the rules … and Mel did it with the aim of competing with other clubs and getting DCFC to the prem … and how many fans were complaining at the time?

 

Once he’d blown his millions naturally he looked for a buyer to take over … in the process cutting the wage bill drastically over a period of 2-3 years to make the club more sustainable and more appealing to a buyer (“its a clean slate your starting with”). He nearly did this twice and unfortunately covid got in the way. Tell me anyone, anywhere in business that even brought covid into their business plans three years ago. No one could have predicted it and guess what? It cost me Morris apparently £1.25m a month, another £15m then. 

 

DCFC reportedly has multiple potential buyers now … where were they before? Well I would hazard a guess that they were just waiting for Mel to do exactly this … and Mel may well have thought that the best thing for the club would be to swallow the pill, get the deductions and start again with fresh, wealthy owners. Whether that’s in the championship or league one.

 

I’m fact I would even suggest that they were putting pressure on Mel to go into administration so that they could buy DCFC at an even cheaper price.

 

Look, Mel did a huge amount wrong, with the Keogh debacle, Sam Rush, believing fake sheikhs and Eric alonso, poor communication, being too bullish, supporting dodgy signings, firing managers, even the final option of administration was another error in my view … I just couldn’t justify myself plunging the good employees of DCFC into financial difficulties, wage cuts job losses etc if I could genuinely afford to keep the club afloat (Rhys just my view, clearly not Mels). But I honestly think the vast majority of what he did was in his view in the interests of DCFC.

 

Perhaps I’ll be proved to be completely wrong. Perhaps he’s one of the worst crooks known to mankind, I just think right now he’s the fall guy, he’s getting a huge amount of stick and he’s suffering because of his poor communication and his failure to properly say sorry.

 

I just wonder, I really do if he did this because it was the only option left on the table that would ultimately secure DCFC a strong and prosperous future, potentially, eventually back in the premier league where we belong.

 

I really hope the above doesn’t offend anyone. I really wouldn’t have taken the drastic step myself and I can’t support Mel on doing that, I’m just saying that in his head perhaps  he genuinely thought he was doing what he thought was right for DCFC.

He put the club into administration when he didn't need to. Not to mention, he bought the club 24 hours away from the Premier League and left us with a potential point deduction of -21 (with 3 suspended) and on the brink of the third division for the 3rd time in our history. 

He has done some good things, but the bad far outweighs the good. He can't have any arguments at the negative comments. I'm sure if the roles were reversed then he would be also be critical of any owner who did that to the club he supports.

[GenBr]

On 26/09/2021 at 21:24, Red Ram said:

Worth bearing this in mind though isn't it?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-10028621/Derby-owner-Morris-writing-100million-loans-administrators-reveal-expressions-interest.html

 

I agree, but not in a way that improves my feelings towards Mel. Why do we have 100 million pounds of debt in the first place? How generous of Mel to not seek repayment of the debts he was entirely responsible for accruing.

13 hours ago, DCFC Kicks said:

I've only just found out about this and I'm not sure if it's 100% true...

George Thorne's contract has to be the most short-sighted, risky thing Mel did. Having to pay West Brom £15,000 every time he played. Apparently that's the reason he didn't play under Lampard and Cocu. Surely someone in accounting could have forecast that there was a scenario where we wouldn't be able to afford him playing 2 years into his 4 year contract!? So we couldn't afford to play him, but were paying him a wage! So we were basically paying him to not play! WHAT THE HELL! 

and Mel didn't even tell George why he wasn't playing for almost two seasons. No wonder he doesn't like him. 

and why didn't we at least let him go to QPR on loan?

honestly Mel, what on earth were you thinking?

I do feel bad for George Thorne, but he also spent significant periods of time unable to play for us due to injury. He barely played for Oxford before he once again fell to injury. They should have communicated better with him, but I don't think he would have played much even if there wasn't some kind of contractual reason for him not playing.

[TheresOnlyWanChope]

5 hours ago, RoyMac5 said:

It wasn't really the same kind of gamble as Anya and Blackman though was it.

Why were they gambles? Maybe Anya a bit because of the fee involved, and if on high wages. 

[RoyMac5]

17 minutes ago, TheresOnlyWanChope said:

Why were they gambles? Maybe Anya a bit because of the fee involved, and if on high wages. 

No you're right, they were great buys.

[TheresOnlyWanChope]

14 minutes ago, RoyMac5 said:

No you're right, they were great buys.

Didn’t say they were great buys, I asked where was the big risk? At least Blackman wasn’t a big risk because I doubt he was on big wages like Anya. Anya had played a lot of games in premier league. Blackman had done very well the previous season and don’t think was on a big fee. My only thought at the time was we had a lot of players then, did we need them. 

[Bald Eagle's Barmy Army]

Mel Morris’ parking spot in the training centre still there but now covered up with an A4 piece of paper with “Club Captain, Tom Lawrence” wrote on it. 
 

Wayne really is glad to see the back of him. 

[Malty]

So I’m now hearing that we still owe Arsenal 8 mill for bielik and lech Poznań 2 mill for jozwiak.

I don’t know how I could feel leaving a club owing so much to so many … and leaving people to lose their livelihoods on the process in order to pay for my own mistakes.

I really really want to have sympathy for Mel. I really do, but this week and these revelations are starting to really get to me. It was Mel that made those commitments … and other people that have to pay for it. I’d love to ask him about this and understand his point of view, because from the outside it’s beginning to really stink.

I think we need him back on radio Derby answering questions from the fans.

[sage]

3 minutes ago, Malty said:

So I’m now hearing that we still owe Arsenal 8 mill for bielik and lech Poznań 2 mill for jozwiak.

I don’t know how I could feel leaving a club owing so much to so many … and leaving people to lose their livelihoods on the process in order to pay for my own mistakes.

I really really want to have sympathy for Mel. I really do, but this week and these revelations are starting to really get to me. It was Mel that made those commitments … and other people that have to pay for it. I’d love to ask him about this and understand his point of view, because from the outside it’s beginning to really stink.

I think we need him back on radio Derby answering questions from the fans.

Where from? what's the source?

[Malty]

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2021/10/01/arsenal-owed-8m-Derby-krystian-bielik-club-step-search-new-owner/amp/

[Carnero]

Just now, Malty said:

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2021/10/01/arsenal-owed-8m-Derby-krystian-bielik-club-step-search-new-owner/amp/

Surely that is just a contingent liability depending on whether various contract incentives are met. On the one hand the deal is "worth upto £10m" yet on the other hand we've paid just £2m so far so owe them £8m. Bielik has barely made 30 appearances so far, and unless I'm mistaken we've not yet been promoted with him, so this story just looks like standard hyperbolic bullpoo to me.

[Donnyram]

13 minutes ago, Malty said:

So I’m now hearing that we still owe Arsenal 8 mill for bielik and lech Poznań 2 mill for jozwiak.

I don’t know how I could feel leaving a club owing so much to so many … and leaving people to lose their livelihoods on the process in order to pay for my own mistakes.

I really really want to have sympathy for Mel. I really do, but this week and these revelations are starting to really get to me. It was Mel that made those commitments … and other people that have to pay for it. I’d love to ask him about this and understand his point of view, because from the outside it’s beginning to really stink.

I think we need him back on radio Derby answering questions from the fans.

I actually get this but it’s another massive gamble that has back fired.  

High fee with low up front payments for a young player of high potential on a 5 year contract.  If he helps to get us promoted in the first 3 years then happy days….. if not then sell him to at least get the money back to pay Arsenal and hopefully bag a profit.   I guess they didn’t consider 2 ACL’s in 2 years affecting his value potential…….. it’s not like that has ever happened before to a talented young holding midfielder ?

[Crewton]

3 minutes ago, Donnyram said:

I actually get this but it’s another massive gamble that has back fired.  

High fee with low up front payments for a young player of high potential on a 5 year contract.  If he helps to get us promoted in the first 3 years then happy days….. if not then sell him to at least get the money back to pay Arsenal and hopefully bag a profit.   I guess they didn’t consider 2 ACL’s in 2 years affecting his value potential…….. it’s not like that has ever happened before to a talented young holding midfielder ?

Fulham have signed Harry Wilson this season in a deal in which they pay nothing now. Zilch.

The ACL injuries - what can anyone say? Sign no-one for a fee in case they get injured?

[Donnyram]

4 minutes ago, Crewton said:

Fulham have signed Harry Wilson this season in a deal in which they pay nothing now. Zilch.

The ACL injuries - what can anyone say? Sign no-one for a fee in case they get injured?

Just re-read my post and understand where you’re coming from……. as I said, I understand the approach but was a gamble (maybe not massive ?)…… it’s back fired because of the injuries…. pure bad luck.  My reference to Thorne was intended as tongue in cheek

I’ll check for context better next time ?

[Van der MoodHoover]

9 minutes ago, Donnyram said:

Just re-read my post and understand where you’re coming from……. as I said, I understand the approach but was a gamble (maybe not massive ?)…… it’s back fired because of the injuries…. pure bad luck.  My reference to Thorne was intended as tongue in cheek

I’ll check for context better next time ?

Both the Bielik and Thorne deals were in their own ways trying to match the payment profile better to the potential benefits. 

What would we be saying if we'd paid, say 3.5m cash for Thorne and 5.5m cash for Bielik given their subsequent injury issues.

Imo you can't berate the club for the structure of those deals. But making the decision to make a significant purchase in Bielik's case was rash. 

[RadioactiveWaste]

Mel Morris Fan club AGM update:

President: Steve Gibson

Financial sec: Richard Keogh

Head of Media Relations: Wayne Rooney

Head of Corporate Responsibility: Sam Rush

 

 

 

[oldtimeram]

The more that's coming out, the more I despise this man