Derby finally accept 21 point deduction.

[Woodley Ram]

15 minutes ago, i-Ram said:

Nope. What has crippled the Club over the last few years is the competence of the Club’s executive. 

I agree, poor administration by Mel and Pearce. they thought they had found a secret formula for FFP, that's why were some what opaque with their explanation to the EFL. They didn't lie about it but could have been clearer and the EFL should have the expertise to have understood what they were doing.  

[Foreveram]

You are the one who said you already know the outcome but you don’t. Of course we still have a chance of getting the points back or we wouldn’t be appealing. I have no idea on the outcome and am willing to wait for official confirmation. How strong a chance we have none of us know. Tell me this, it’s a straightforward question, will you be happy to be proved right or happy to be proved wrong . As for growing up that what my grandkids tell me to do.?

[PistoldPete]

1 hour ago, i-Ram said:

Pete, I have re-read our exchanges from yesterday. I am happy to acknowledge the one point you have made above, but I am not sure in my mind the EFL did too much wrong here. There wasn’t anything too wrong, and certainly not incorrect, regarding the statement they issued. They can’t write chapter and verse in a short statement. What they reported was factually correct.

As for the back and forth in an Appeal Hearing, I am not sure what you might be expecting. The appeal hearing was an opportunity for the EFL and Derby to restate their cases. Both parties were represented by legal Counsel. Such a hearing is always going to be adversarial.

I am full square behind the Administrators, and therefore Club, trying to get our points penalty reduced to nil, or as close to it as possible - by which I mean the 12 point penalty that was correctly applied, and any other points penalty that might be pending as a result of Mad Mel’s P&S overspend. I actually do think there is a case for COVID to be argued as a Force Majeure event on the 12 point penalty. There is less argument for our P&S overspend, although that position is blurred by what is or isn’t and FRS compliant amortisation policy. No doubt that is still being discussed currently. However, I have yet to see a compelling argument as to why the Club changed it’s amortisation policy 5 or 6 years ago, other than to kick P&S spending down the line and therefore gain some advantage (or avoid some penalty). Morris and Pearce no doubt thought they were being clever at the time. Time has only evidenced them to be complete fools.

I agree that the change in amortisation policy was a misjudgement. But it wasn’t completely unreasonable when it coincided with a big investment in new players. If you invest £4million in a 23 year old why would you expect that amount to depreciate by 25% in the First year due to an artificial straight line hit.
 

of course if that player is Kamil Jozwiak that argument doesn’t look so strong.

the amortisation thing was bad judgement as were the signings that went with it. But I don’t believe it breaks any rules.

[Bris Vegas]

We’re down already. Only chance we have is if the gap is down to seven points maximum by January.

But if anything, it looks like it will be bigger.

We needed at least midtable form to have a chance. But we’re in relegation form regardless of the points deduction.

[Kingpin]

Just now, Bris Vegas said:

We needed at least midtable form to have a chance. But we’re in relegation form regardless

This is the problem. How long before they pull the plug on WR and LR, just to say we tried something different. I’m not saying it’s right, but then again neither is watching the club slump to the lower leagues without doing something. 

[bcnram]

13 minutes ago, Kingpin said:

This is the problem. How long before they pull the plug on WR and LR, just to say we tried something different. I’m not saying it’s right, but then again neither is watching the club slump to the lower leagues without doing something. 

I think that getting the club sold /sorting out the debt and moving on is doing something. No matter who is in charge our defenders will still make stupid mistakes costing points. I don't think this is the time to be changing managers, it is players like Byrne etc. that need changing.

[Chris_Martin]

42 minutes ago, PistoldPete said:

I agree that the change in amortisation policy was a misjudgement. But it wasn’t completely unreasonable when it coincided with a big investment in new players. If you invest £4million in a 23 year old why would you expect that amount to depreciate by 25% in the First year due to an artificial straight line hit.
 

of course if that player is Kamil Jozwiak that argument doesn’t look so strong.

the amortisation thing was bad judgement as were the signings that went with it. But I don’t believe it breaks any rules.

[FlyBritishMidland]

1 hour ago, PistoldPete said:

I agree that the change in amortisation policy was a misjudgement. But it wasn’t completely unreasonable when it coincided with a big investment in new players. If you invest £4million in a 23 year old why would you expect that amount to depreciate by 25% in the First year due to an artificial straight line hit.
 

of course if that player is Kamil Jozwiak that argument doesn’t look so strong.

the amortisation thing was bad judgement as were the signings that went with it. But I don’t believe it breaks any rules.

The problem with the way we amortised player values is it works if every transfer is a good one.  We did for every player we signed and it’s hard to justify signings like Anya, Blackman, etc losing a small amount in the first year, if anything it should have been the other way round.  That’s why a straight line is the preferred method as it averages out and allows for good and bad signings.  To use our method then you’d have to consider each signing individually for every year of their contract to get to a realistic value.

[PistoldPete]

36 minutes ago, FlyBritishMidland said:

The problem with the way we amortised player values is it works if every transfer is a good one.  We did for every player we signed and it’s hard to justify signings like Anya, Blackman, etc losing a small amount in the first year, if anything it should have been the other way round.  That’s why a straight line is the preferred method as it averages out and allows for good and bad signings.  To use our method then you’d have to consider each signing individually for every year of their contract to get to a realistic value.

You really don’t need every signing to be a good one. If Derby had signed Ollie Watkins ( and a deal was agreed in January 2017), then the profit from him would have offset all the bad signings put together.

[I know nuffin]

41 minutes ago, FlyBritishMidland said:

The problem with the way we amortised player values is it works if every transfer is a good one.  We did for every player we signed and it’s hard to justify signings like Anya, Blackman, etc losing a small amount in the first year, if anything it should have been the other way round.  That’s why a straight line is the preferred method as it averages out and allows for good and bad signings.  To use our method then you’d have to consider each signing individually for every year of their contract to get to a realistic value.

Consider each one yearly- right at the beginning of the amortization mess it was claimed that was what we did (, according to Morris)

[PistoldPete]

1 hour ago, Bris Vegas said:

We’re down already. Only chance we have is if the gap is down to seven points maximum by January.

But if anything, it looks like it will be bigger.

We needed at least midtable form to have a chance. But we’re in relegation form regardless of the points deduction.

Last season we had 8 points from 15 games. Yet still stayed up. This season we have 18 points from 15, so we are already 10 points ahead of last season at the same stage.  Even with a points deduction our position is not completely impossible .

[Ghost of Clough]

5 minutes ago, I know nuffin said:

Consider each one yearly- right at the beginning of the amortization mess it was claimed that was what we did (, according to Morris)

Every 6 months, actually

[MuespachRam]

49 minutes ago, FlyBritishMidland said:

The problem with the way we amortised player values is it works if every transfer is a good one.  We did for every player we signed and it’s hard to justify signings like Anya, Blackman, etc losing a small amount in the first year, if anything it should have been the other way round.  That’s why a straight line is the preferred method as it averages out and allows for good and bad signings.  To use our method then you’d have to consider each signing individually for every year of their contract to get to a realistic value.

The problem with the way we amortised the players values was that It was a desperate business practice put through by a desperate business man trying desperately to cover up the fact that he had driven the business into the ground and It was bust. 
 

[FlyBritishMidland]

7 minutes ago, PistoldPete said:

You really don’t need every signing to be a good one. If Derby had signed Ollie Watkins ( and a deal was agreed in January 2017), then the profit from him would have offset all the bad signings put together.

Which is why a straight line approach is preferred.  You depreciate the asset value over the duration of the contract and this method balances the good and bad.  Our approach assumed all were good signings and lost only a small amount of their value in the first few years.  
 

You’re right, the profit does go some way but only when it’s realised (e.g. Vydra).  You can’t allow for a profit on a potential sale as it doesn’t exist.  If we’d sold a lot of players for profit it wouldn’t be so bad but how often has that happened in the last 4/5 years?  And ultimately that’s the problem that led to the change in approach - too much money going out and not enough coming in.

[FlyBritishMidland]

11 minutes ago, I know nuffin said:

Consider each one yearly- right at the beginning of the amortization mess it was claimed that was what we did (, according to Morris)

But only assuming every signing kept the bulk of their value in the first year or two.  We didn’t do it the other way.

[MuespachRam]

Whoever they get they will still beat out total…unless they get Paul Jewel of course 

[PistoldPete]

9 minutes ago, MuespachRam said:

The problem with the way we amortised the players values was that It was a desperate business practice put through by a desperate business man trying desperately to cover up the fact that he had driven the business into the ground and It was bust. 
 

It was introduced in 2015-16. Was Morris trying to cover up that he had driven us into the ground and that were bust then? Over 5 years ago?  Wow.  He must be very good at covering up then.

[Ghost of Clough]

11 minutes ago, MuespachRam said:

The problem with the way we amortised the players values was that It was a desperate business practice put through by a desperate business man trying desperately to cover up the fact that he had driven the business into the ground and It was bust. 
 

Let's not let the facts get in the way of a good story.

We changed amortisation policy at the start of the 15/16 season, which allowed us to splash the cash on a host of expensive signings.

[PistoldPete]

7 minutes ago, FlyBritishMidland said:

But only assuming every signing kept the bulk of their value in the first year or two.  We didn’t do it the other way.

That isn't true. Comparison was made with market value every year at least.

[BaaLocks]

2 hours ago, PistoldPete said:

I agree that the change in amortisation policy was a misjudgement. But it wasn’t completely unreasonable when it coincided with a big investment in new players. If you invest £4million in a 23 year old why would you expect that amount to depreciate by 25% in the First year due to an artificial straight line hit.
 

of course if that player is Kamil Jozwiak that argument doesn’t look so strong.

the amortisation thing was bad judgement as were the signings that went with it. But I don’t believe it breaks any rules.

The amortisation thing, as you say, was naive beyond ridiculous. That people within the club thought they could redefine the way we value our most important assets (the players) in a way that gave us considerable advantage over every other club in the division and to not expect that to subsequently be challenged was just schoolboy in it's thinking. You just can't change rules like that because you don't agree with them, life doesn't work that way and big institutions like the EFL (with all it's members) most certainly don't. And, like everything else that was tried in the past few years, all it was doing was kicking the can down the road - the club screwed up by allowing a number of high value, low return signings to be made in a short amount of time and then failed to get the club promoted to a place where that no longer mattered.

Net net: Mel gambled big, played fast and loose with things that he did not truly own, and his poor business knowledge (garnered largely on a lucky punt on an app) came and found him out. Covid merely accelerated the path, and the points deduction is no more than we could expect for our actions - even if it hurts us all in it's implementation it is hard to deny that.