Alan Nixon Breaks Silence on American Billionaire Bid

[GadFly]

5 minutes ago, TheresOnlyWanChope said:

I agree but maybe there will be no buyer with such a high debt. Which means liquidation. Maybe a pre requisite for these buyers is that the debt is reduced.

Yeah I appreciate that and I agree... but that kind of brings us full circle to my original question - aside from what essentially amounts to sympathy for the fans, why should/would your average citizen give a toss if Derby get liquidated? Surely from the neutral perspective of your average taxpayer, you'd want to insist that the debt is paid in full and if not, the club should be punished and prevented from operating in the future? Imagine it wasn't Derby, or even another football club.. 

[PistoldPete]

26 minutes ago, GadFly said:

Forgive my possible stupidity, but perhaps somebody can enlighten me... 

If we owe 30 odd million in unpaid monies to HMRC... why should they write that money off/reduce the debt? I'm looking for answers that don't resort to whataboutery please. I'm not interested in "well Amazon/Starbucks/whoever don't pay their taxes so why should we?" or anything like that (I mean, for starters, two wrongs don't make a right...). What I want to know is - from the perspective of a non-Rams-supporting everyday taxpayer, why should their tax money be used to prop up a football club that they have no association with, and couldn't care less if it went out of existence? Wouldn't that money be better spent on education or healthcare? Why should any of us continue to play fair and pay our fair share, if DCFC won't/don't? 

Surely if you're going to advocate and hope for DCFC to have their unpaid taxes ignored, then you cannot ever take a moral position against any other corporation not paying their taxes, ever again? 

If I've got this completely wrapped around my neck then I do apologise, but I'd also like to understand the situation a little better so please don't go too hard on me if I'm just being dumb - enlighten me instead! ?

Even a 25% payment gets HMRC £7million. Plus future tax on revenues and PAYE etc.

if it doesn’t do a deal HMRC gets nothing from the proceeds of the admin .And nothing in future either. 

It should be a no brainer.

[TheresOnlyWanChope]

3 minutes ago, GadFly said:

Yeah I appreciate that and I agree... but that kind of brings us full circle to my original question - aside from what essentially amounts to sympathy for the fans, why should/would your average citizen give a toss if Derby get liquidated? Surely from the neutral perspective of your average taxpayer, you'd want to insist that the debt is paid in full and if not, the club should be punished and prevented from operating in the future? Imagine it wasn't Derby, or even another football club.. 

the average citizen wouldn’t care. Big businesses do go bust. Football clubs do seem to be different in that they are often historic and linked to communities but aside from Derby folk and some football fans many won’t care. Bigger businesses have gone such as Debenhams. 

[PistoldPete]

15 minutes ago, GadFly said:

Even reduced seems a bit unethical to me when I try to view the situation through a neutral lens. The club should pay their taxes in full IMO, even if it takes a lot longer than it would under normal circumstances. 

What the Mail is saying is that no buyer will pay anything if it means acquiring that level of debt. The club cannot stay in admin forever. So the admin team could decide to liquidate the club and then HMRC get nothing.

[PistoldPete]

8 minutes ago, GadFly said:

Yeah I appreciate that and I agree... but that kind of brings us full circle to my original question - aside from what essentially amounts to sympathy for the fans, why should/would your average citizen give a toss if Derby get liquidated? Surely from the neutral perspective of your average taxpayer, you'd want to insist that the debt is paid in full and if not, the club should be punished and prevented from operating in the future? Imagine it wasn't Derby, or even another football club.. 

I have never wished for any other club to be Liquidated. Glasgow Rangers maybe an exception they were actively dodging tax. But even then not the fans fault is it? 

[Hope you survive]

8 minutes ago, PistoldPete said:

Thanks for your good wishes. Was the cheque to HMRC for the full amount they wanted or for a p in the £ payment.?

Full amounts, as far as we were aware from what was reported. It's a binary conversation with HMRC - either you're a going concern as a business (in which case you can pay the bill, because you're a going concern) or your not, in which case they try and wind you up. The difference between a Bolton and Starbucks is that Starbucks actually pay what the law says they owe - they just manage to make that zero, whereas Bolton weren't paying what we actually owed...

[TheresOnlyWanChope]

1 minute ago, PistoldPete said:

I have never wished for any other club to be Liquidated. Glasgow Rangers maybe an exception they were actively dodging tax. But even then not the fans fault is it? 

Think there needs to be a plan In place for AFC Derby County. 

[strawhillram]

I’m starting to accept we won’t have DCFC for much longer. It’s been a fantastic ride for 50 something years but a sad and awful ending.

I can’t see any point in supporting a new club under any other name

?

football is dead, long live something else.

Edited December 2, 2021 by StrawHillRam

[MackworthRamIsGod]

1 minute ago, StrawHillRam said:

I’m starting to accept we won’t have DCFC for much longer. It’s been a fantastic ride for 50 something years but a sad and awful ending.

I can’t see any point in supporting a new club under and other name. 

I'm resigning myself to the same fate.

It looks as though the administrators are preparing a response to the fans, but that BAWT or whatever it is have said things remain 'largely unchanged'.

That worries me massively. If nothing has changed it means no one is playing ball.

There are reasons why Kirchner and Rooney have started to publicly show their frustrations imo.

 

[Carnero]

Liquidation means MSD get most or all of their money, HMRC get nothing or next to nothing and Mel Morris is left holding an empty stadium with no football team to play their.

There should be a satisfactory resolution to all this, ignore the white noise.

[Ram-Alf]

43 minutes ago, GadFly said:

Yeah but by writing off the debt they won't get their money even if DCFC do exist...? So again, from the perspective of your average taxpaying Brit, I don't see how it can be justified to just write off 30 million quid and allow the club to just crack on operating as if nothing happened.

Surely the sensible and fair thing to do would be to create some kind of manageable payment plan, where the club pays back the money over a longer period of time?   

Why are there posters coming up with the most plausible excuse as to why we should pay our legal debts ?

I agree GadFly this can't be right, Unfortunately it's the business world we live in, I've worked for several companies over my lifetime where 2 of them were left with insolvency/Liquidation this left me and others out of pocket, This is not fare either, The owners left with huge payoffs while the shopfloor workers got very little if they were lucky.

It's the way of the world, It aint right nor is it fare...but it is what it is.

 

[StarterForTen]

11 minutes ago, Unlucky Alf said:

It's the way of the world, It aint right nor is it fare...but it is what it is.

It's called capitalism. But in most people's eye, the alternatives are grimmer.

[therams69]

1 hour ago, mike93rh said:

I agree! I get the 12 point deduction rule being brought in as there was a flurry of clubs going into admin to cut their debts which shafted local suppliers and HMRC alike, and the league wanted to discourage that.

I think this is why fan representation on the board is so important, if we had people that cared about this club and not just the potential return on investment by gaining promotion, perhaps the alarm bells could've been ringing years ago over the state of our finances - with Pearce and Morris given the boot?

I raised alarm bells back in May and pretty much got shot down for it all so the talk of fan representation, whilst it seems a good idea, I am not so sure whether they would become the new hate figure should things go wrong as they wont directly be holding the purse strings. 

A group of fans maybe but we have also seen the hate that the Supporters Charter Group have got over the past year through no fault of their own.

I can only go what was said at the last meeting with the administrators, it was positive and they said preferred bidder announced next week all being well. Personally wouldn't surprise me if this was CK team speaking to the Mail to try and rush the sale through. Mail have just dramatised it.

But yes, back in May liquidation was a possibility for the future, it was heading that way via admin due to the absolute dire situation the club found itself in. We should have acted then whilst Mr Morris was still present, we didn't and he bolted.

[sage]

HMRC know they won't get the whole lot up front. They also won't want to write the rest off.

It's all down to how we pay off the rest. They will want X amount per year but that won't really work with a football club almost certain to be in League One next year. We, I imagine, will want a flexible pay back option based on revenue/which division we are in.     

[Crewton]

The Mail article fails to mention the point that anyone buying the club will most likely be able to buy a stadium that would cost £100m+ to rebuild, and valued at £80m 3 years ago for £20m, apparently. 

That would be a prize worth paying £60m for. 

[strawhillram]

15 minutes ago, Crewton said:

The Mail article fails to mention the point that anyone buying the club will most likely be able to buy a stadium that would cost £100m+ to rebuild, and valued at £80m 3 years ago for £20m, apparently. 

That would be a prize worth paying £60m for. 

That’s a very interesting point. Perhaps that is the reason why there are still interested parties. They want the stadium and surrounding land, same could be said for the training/academy facilities.

[rammieib]

3 hours ago, therealhantsram said:

The Administrators are smart people.

After the deal with the EFL on points penalty, they admitted in a RD interview that the appeal against the 12 point admin penalty was just a ploy to get EFL to come to the table and make a deal on the other penalties.

I say  that this story is just a similar tactic: Placed in the Mail by the admins to get HMRC to come to the table and negotiate.

I say don't panic. This is all part of the process. Let the Admins do their job.

Not that smart - the tactic didn't work to reduce the points. We still got minus 21.

[therealhantsram]

1 minute ago, rammieib said:

Not that smart - the tactic didn't work to reduce the points. We still got minus 21.

They got their objective which was to have all the possible points deductions applied this season, and quickly, to allow a sale of business (not sale of the players!).

According to the Admins, EFL were dragging their heels and there was the possibility of some points deductions next season. Which could have meant 2 consecutive relegations, or failure to sell the business on.

Remember the Administrators ONLY objective is to maximise how much debt can be paid off to creditors. Seems to me like they succeeded in that aim. 

[rammieib]

1 hour ago, GadFly said:

Forgive my possible stupidity, but perhaps somebody can enlighten me... 

If we owe 30 odd million in unpaid monies to HMRC... why should they write that money off/reduce the debt? I'm looking for answers that don't resort to whataboutery please. I'm not interested in "well Amazon/Starbucks/whoever don't pay their taxes so why should we?" or anything like that (I mean, for starters, two wrongs don't make a right...). What I want to know is - from the perspective of a non-Rams-supporting everyday taxpayer, why should their tax money be used to prop up a football club that they have no association with, and couldn't care less if it went out of existence? Wouldn't that money be better spent on education or healthcare? Why should any of us continue to play fair and pay our fair share, if DCFC won't/don't? 

Surely if you're going to advocate and hope for DCFC to have their unpaid taxes ignored, then you cannot ever take a moral position against any other corporation not paying their taxes, ever again? 

If I've got this completely wrapped around my neck then I do apologise, but I'd also like to understand the situation a little better so please don't go too hard on me if I'm just being dumb - enlighten me instead! ?

For me its as follows:

1) If the business is liquidated, then HMRC lose all £29 Million. Some is better than nothing yes?

2) If the business is going to be run properly going forward - then that should be circa £3-5 Million income a year for HMRC from Derby County from VAT, Corporate Tax, Employer and Employee Tax.

3) The Supply chain knock on behind this - Every £1 we spend on a company is money into the economy supporting Jobs and businesses who in return actually pay their tax bill.

A good thriving economy is one that has lots of businesses doing well and paying their bills. The administration process is to see if the business actually can run as a sustainable entity and pay its bills. It's better for everyone if we are still in existence. Got to think of us as a business, not as a football club here.

Finally - for HMRC, any deal they do here almost sets a precedent for future collapses of football clubs so its in their interest to drive a hard bargain, but HMRC need to know the BAFO (Best and Final Offer) at which a deal can be done AND we will still have one of the four competing bidders still interested in buying us. Whilst we actually have four bidders, we're not in a strong position with HMRC which is why it may drag on a bit. Four bidders pushes the price up as they outbid each other, so this means they pay more which means more money to pay HMRC. If three bidders drop out, leaving just one, say Kirchner, he could basically say to the club "I'm offering £40m to clear all the debts" - the admins will then know how much they can offer to HMRC and you've found your BAFO point.

It's actually really complex and the fact everything is being sorted in a 3-month period is quite phenomenal... almost as phenomenal as the hourly wage from the Administrators.

 

[rammieib]

1 minute ago, therealhantsram said:

They got their objective which was to have all the possible points deductions applied this season, and quickly, to allow a sale of business (not sale of the players!).

According to the Admins, EFL were dragging their heels and there was the possibility of some points deductions next season. Which could have meant 2 consecutive relegations, or failure to sell the business on.

Remember the Administrators ONLY objective is to maximise how much debt can be paid off to creditors. Seems to me like they succeeded in that aim. 

We may never know the full details but to me - the 12 points already applied, leaving only the 9 points where the offer was already on the table.

We've accepted the business plan as well.

I'd love to know if the appeal actually took anything 'off the table' - I'm certainly not aware of any threat of points deductions in future years.