Derby finally accept 21 point deduction.

[Sparkle]

If when the appeal gets heard if I was sitting on an appeals panel I would be asking the EFL to give ten examples of how a club can win an appeal against administration from their viewpoint before the hearing took place, the answers would be very interesting. The EFL should be able to answer that question or their appeal system could easily be questioned in law as being unfair.

[PistoldPete]

10 minutes ago, Ghost of Clough said:

And this is what has to be argued at the appeal hearing. Were our actions at the time reasonable. What you described was the best case scenario. The club should have been prepared for reasonable case and worst case scenarios. Again, we could argue we did that by selling Holmes, Evans, Whittaker, and getting compensation for the academy players in January. We only got players in on loan on minimal wages too (or nothing at all).
However, we then went into the summer and recruited, rejected offers for players, then looked into administration just days after the transfer window closed. This is the toughest part to justify.

As an outsider it looked like a sound business decision. Without knowing the actual financial position at the time it is difficult to to comment further.

They wouldn't represent P&S losses. Buchanan is an academy graduate so would have generated a profit. Given we've been forced into changing to a standard amortisation policy, the restated figures will have shown a small profit on Lawrence.

Both players only have 1 year left on their contracts. Is £4m for the two of them fair value or not? Difficult to say.

Mel's stated £1.5m a month injection roughly equates to the £20m Covid blackhole, so yes, we very likely would have been fine if it didn't happen. 
The regulations state it has to be the sole cause of going into administration. There is a question mark over our transfer activity during the period and whether it also contributed to us going into administration.

As I said above, it comes down to whether our actions were reasonable.

I agree with your last sentence. SInce the pandemic our actions have been reasonable with the possible exception of signing Jozwiak. Probably if we had known the pandemic was going to go on for so long and that he would not be much use to us we shouldn't have done that one, said Captain Hindsight. But as ~I say the delayed payments on Joz probably meant that made no big difference too.

 

the test is whether we acted reasonably, not that we acted with perfect foresight in everything we did.

[Crewton]

You only have to look at the reduction in the number of permanent players over the age of 21 to see that the club was trying to significantly reduce the squad size and wage bill since the end of the 2018/19 season, if not before.

Without a product, a business is dead, regardless of what the figures say. Had we turned away a firm bid for anyone that was remotely near our valuation, there might be a case for saying we weren't really trying - but there wasn't. Not one.

[MuespachRam]

1 hour ago, Crewton said:

You only have to look at the reduction in the number of permanent players over the age of 21 to see that the club was trying to significantly reduce the squad size and wage bill since the end of the 2018/19 season, if not before.

Without a product, a business is dead, regardless of what the figures say. Had we turned away a firm bid for anyone that was remotely near our valuation, there might be a case for saying we weren't really trying - but there wasn't. Not one.

“Our valuation” we turned down a bid for Buchanan that I would say was pretty fair and any bid for Lawrence should have been accepted. 
 

[Macintosh]

4 hours ago, sage said:

If we did receive that offer, selling him and Buchanan would have just about kept us going until November then you are close to the window.  

Rooney stated that no player was going to be sold unless he said so, and that did happen.

I'm guessing HMRC will get any outstanding transfer payments owed to the club after administration, that if money is owed on Bennett or Evans they get that. Hughes too. Same with Holmes, and it would be the same with any players that might have been sold during the last window. HMRC play the long game, even if it is 50 years down the line at £1 a week.

It appears no club pays up front, it is staged payments, so selling Lawrence and Buchanan might only have initially brought in [maybe] £1m and that pays a month's wages and is gobbled up? Whereas after administration it's a clean slate, they are assets.

[sage]

52 minutes ago, Macintosh said:

Rooney stated that no player was going to be sold unless he said so, and that did happen.

I'm guessing HMRC will get any outstanding transfer payments owed to the club after administration, that if money is owed on Bennett or Evans they get that. Hughes too. Same with Holmes, and it would be the same with any players that might have been sold during the last window. HMRC play the long game, even if it is 50 years down the line at £1 a week.

It appears no club pays up front, it is staged payments, so selling Lawrence and Buchanan might only have initially brought in [maybe] £1m and that pays a month's wages and is gobbled up? Whereas after administration it's a clean slate, they are assets.

The point is, does this refusal to sell have an impact on out argument that covid was the reason we went into Administration.  

[Crewton]

1 hour ago, MuespachRam said:

“Our valuation” we turned down a bid for Buchanan that I would say was pretty fair and any bid for Lawrence should have been accepted. 
 

£1.35M for an England U21 international who can play any position on the LHS of defence? Even allowing for the fact he's out of contract next summer, that's neither acceptable nor in any way helpful to our finances.

Neither that or an "any bid will do" approach to selling  Lawrence would have staved off Administration, with HMRC poised to issue a W/U order when the Government's moritorium ended on 1st October. We'd just have a weaker squad.

[Tamworthram]

1 hour ago, MuespachRam said:

“Our valuation” we turned down a bid for Buchanan that I would say was pretty fair and any bid for Lawrence should have been accepted. 
 

They might have been "fair" but would it have made much difference if we'd accepted? 

As others have said, if Buchanan's "value" was only just over £1m it would only have been a very brief stay of execution.

I don't know how much was offered for Lawrence without ploughing back through this thread (do we actually know how much was offered?).

[Oldben]

5 hours ago, Sparkle said:

I don’t see why a deduction would be reduced in this circumstance for me it’s 12pts or zero point deduction and personally I would say that for any club in the same situation it should be zero point reduction. Administration causes all kinds of problems for a football club whilst the 12 point deduction kills of the football aspect. These are not normal times with a worldwide global pandemic ? 

History doesn't support reducing a points deduction to zero, its never happened.

Derby are not walking away from this situation with zero points deducted, the efl want to make a statement.

 

[Sparkle]

1 minute ago, Oldben said:

History doesn't support reducing a points deduction to zero, its never happened.

Derby are not walking away from this situation with zero points deducted, the efl want to make a statement.

 

I am talking about the points deduction for going into administration 

[Tamworthram]

8 minutes ago, Oldben said:

History doesn't support reducing a points deduction to zero, its never happened.

Derby are not walking away from this situation with zero points deducted, the efl want to make a statement.

 

 

Is there any history of a club successfully making such an appeal such as this?

For me it's either the "independent" panel agrees with our force majeure argument or they don't. I can't see how there can be any half way house partial reduction. 

That's not to say the EFL wouldn't get their pound of flesh with a points deduction for other reasons. It seems ridiculous that the EFL are taking so long to review our accounts and come to a decision and I can't help thinking they're waiting to see what happens with our appeal (the Daily Mail, so it must be correct ?, reckon three weeks).

Edited October 12, 2021 by Tamworthram

[Macintosh]

41 minutes ago, sage said:

The point is, does this refusal to sell have an impact on out argument that covid was the reason we went into Administration.  

I think the argument would be that because of the embargo on bringing in players already in place, we could not have replaced them like-for-like if sold and it would be detrimental to competing in the Championship if they were disposed of.

[Bald Eagle's Barmy Army]

Every topic right now feels like this

[sage]

2 minutes ago, Macintosh said:

I think the argument would be that because of the embargo on bringing in players already in place, we could not have replaced them like-for-like if sold and it would be detrimental to competing in the Championship if they were disposed of.

We could have replaced them but with 4.5k free agents. Did we need to replace Buchanan when we had Forsyth and Williams. 

Just playing Devils Advocate. Obviously I hope we get the 12 points waived or reduced, but I'm not optimistic. 

[DCFC27]

2 hours ago, MuespachRam said:

“Our valuation” we turned down a bid for Buchanan that I would say was pretty fair and any bid for Lawrence should have been accepted. 
 

To sell a business, you want to present it in the best way. Selling Lawrence and Buchanan might have meant we really struggled in the first two months of the season and put off a perspective buyer. We may have sold them and lost Rooney because he wasn’t able to recruit. Meaning the club looks less and less appealing. 
 

Think of it as selling your house, you would try to make it as presentable as possible before you market it. It might be a little bit tired but you wouldn’t smash up your kitchen. 

[Oldben]

16 minutes ago, Tamworthram said:

 

Is there any history of a club successfully making such an appeal such as this?

For me it's either the "independent" panel agrees with our force majeure argument or they don't. I can't see how there can be any half way house partial reduction. 

That's not to say the EFL wouldn't get their pound of flesh with a points deduction for other reasons. It seems ridiculous that the EFL are taking so long to review our accounts and come to a decision and I can't help thinking they're waiting to see what happens with our appeal (the Daily Mail, so it must be correct ?, reckon three weeks).

Sheffield wednesday had a 12 point deduction which was reduced to 6 points on appeal.

There appeal was for different reasons than ours would be.

 

 

[jono]

17 hours ago, plymouthram said:

What ever way you look in to this whether its wrong or right. the current peoples running our club are financial experts who are willing to spend £300k on the appeal costs. They are not gambling like Mel has done with the club, they will put up a very strong case. The EFL put out a statement stating the appeal will be looked at by a elected board to look at Derby's case. The EFL are in a no win situation on this, Covid has caused a lot of business's to go under. Their witch hunt on the Derby led by the whinging chairman of another championship club does not put them in favour with the sports media/press (Daily Mail not included).

I feel we have a strong case, I am quitely confident that our 12 point deduction will be reduced.

I suspect it’s part of a negotiation game .. reduce to 9 but further 3 or 6 incoming .. then the discussion about getting them all in one season or not as the case may be. There’s going to be some haggling … not really just, but it will happen 

[Tamworthram]

20 minutes ago, Oldben said:

Sheffield wednesday had a 12 point deduction which was reduced to 6 points on appeal.

There appeal was for different reasons than ours would be.

 

 

That's my point. Has anyone every successfully appealed on the grounds of force majeure? 

If not, then there is no precedent and I fail to see how there can be any halfway house. Either circumstances beyond our control forced us into administration or it didn't. Only time will tell if a) we are successful and b) if we do win, what the impact will be. 

[ossieram]

59 minutes ago, Tamworthram said:

They might have been "fair" but would it have made much difference if we'd accepted? 

As others have said, if Buchanan's "value" was only just over £1m it would only have been a very brief stay of execution.

I don't know how much was offered for Lawrence without ploughing back through this thread (do we actually know how much was offered?).

I don't think anyone put an official offer in for Lawrence. 

[KRAM]

That appeal would be up to 400k of our money, the money we pay through the turnstiles. 400k we don’t have FFS.

Get real.