The Administration Thread

[Elwood P Dowd]

29 minutes ago, Indy said:

To help DCFC avoid liquidation which would leave him with a £20m debt secured on a white elephant football stadium with no team in it. 

But  that doesn’t make sense he would be financially better off with the £20m loss, an indemnity would include Court Cost and, if the case was found, whatever the judge awarded to Boro and Wycombe in the way of compensation.

Once matters go to court the outcome is always in the balance, Mel’s indemnity might cost him £60 million if things went badly.

What If the judge awarded punitive damages ?

 

note

Personally my view is the claims have very little legal merit but you never know.

 

 

Edited January 16, 2022 by Elwood P Dowd

[PistoldPete]

1 hour ago, Carnero said:

An excellent explanation of where we seem to be at, courtesy of Black & White Together:

https://www.dcfcbawt.org/post/efl-quantuma-s-position-here-s-bawt-s-ian-redfern-s-view

Well that just seems pure guesswork. We are all guessing to be fair, but that doesn't seem like even the best guess we have had.

[Ram-Alf]

19 minutes ago, Rev said:

 

If they don't have the thick skins required to ignore the knockers,

 

These?

[kevinhectoring]

55 minutes ago, i-Ram said:

It is an excellent explanation, and very plausible. Also supporting my view expressed a week or two ago after Kirchner dipped out that Morris still has significant influence over the process, although one or two posters disagreed strongly with this assertion. Thanks for posting @Carnero

#properduckjob

You are a monkey I-ram

1 your most vocal contributions recently involved you stating that the problem was not the Gibson claims. 

2 MM has the ability still to make this go away by defeasing the 2 claims. That’s all this note says, it says no more than “MM has a lot of money “. If you’re claiming that’s what you meant when arguing that he retains significant influence well that’s a stretch. Because your posts show you were talking about the stadium 

[BramcoteRam84]

Not sure I do agree with that Ian Redfern guy’s opinion on this. Makes his points well and clearly has some experience in insolvencies. But ignores the fact the Boro and Wycombe claims have been put on us while in administration which isn’t supported by law, and doesn’t dispute as such that such claims have been promoted to football creditors therefore whatever that figure is needs to be settled in full which makes any prospective purchase unworkable if they are the figures stated and through further negotiations with said parties cannot be reduced.

He also assumes the EFL are allowing the possibility for these cases to be dealt with following due process or in court in the future, my understanding from everything that has been reported (and none of us really know the true facts) is they want settlement and agreement on the claims before approving any administration exit. So Mel indemnifying the preferred bidders against future liability may be irrelevant anyway.

There have been a few people, including this guy and an ex-poster on here who IMO has been a sad loss to this forum who have been very vocal for a while on other social media platforms namely Twitter that we shouldn’t attach any blame to the EFL, Middlesbrough or Wycombe, or blame and all fixes lie at the door of and in the hands of Mel Morris. This article simply continues to push that Agenda.

Mel Morris is absolutely no 1 person to blame in this yes and he could make this a whole lot easier in many ways. However without these ridiculous illegal claims on the table from Wycombe and Boro, we would likely be exiting administration.

 

[PistoldPete]

1 hour ago, kevinhectoring said:

The numbers only work I guess if unsecured claims are compromised down to 25%. That’s what the bidders will have been told to expect. Easiest way to get there is CVA and for DCFC to continue as the owner. But you might not get enough votes for the CVA. If you don’t, you need to go the sale route 

My understanding is you can have a CVA to reduce some of the liabilities. It's up to the admin to decide which liabilities they include in the CVA. Everyone included i the CVA has to vote (except I think Morris won't be counted and anyway he is not claiming anything).

So if Admin are saying the only is Boro and Wycomve how is this holding up the naming of the preferred bidder?

If they get a £50 million cash bid then (even without player sales) they can pay off all the existing creditors with something a bit better than 25% for the unsecured ones.  And HMRC will accept a payment plan, and don't seem to be a stumbling block.

What if the Boro and Wycombe claims later become something more than nominal, amybe even a lot more unlikely though it is? well we may go pop. And need another rescue. But it's  not as if the bidders don't know about the claims is it? They probably know as much as anyone maybe more. Yet still they have put it in a bid. So what's the hold up? 
   

[Gaspode]

6 minutes ago, Unlucky Alf said:

These?

To quote Simon Groome on Blue Peter “What a beautiful pair of knockers” - look it up on YouTube kiddies…..

[PistoldPete]

1 hour ago, i-Ram said:

It is an excellent explanation, and very plausible. Also supporting my view expressed a week or two ago after Kirchner dipped out that Morris still has significant influence over the process, although one or two posters disagreed strongly with this assertion. Thanks for posting @Carnero

#properduckjob

So Morris could indemnify the claims. So could you. So it's all your fault. See how that works?

[IslandExile]

1 minute ago, PistoldPete said:

What if the Boro and Wycombe claims later become something more than nominal, amybe even a lot more unlikely though it is? well we may go pop. And need another rescue. But it's  not as if the bidders don't know about the claims is it? They probably know as much as anyone maybe more. Yet still they have put it in a bid. So what's the hold up? 

Because the prospective buyers would lose their money if it went pop, so they're reluctant to take that risk.

[kevinhectoring]

6 minutes ago, BramcoteRam84 said:

But ignores the fact the Boro and Wycombe claims have been put on us while in administration which isn’t supported by law,

Agree with much of what you say but this statement is incorrect and doesn’t reflect the effect of the moratorium 

[Malty]

I have also received a reply from Rick parry.

It’s  P&C, so I would not wish to share it. Notwithstanding, what I can share is that he is suggesting the EFLs insolvency policy and need to be applied consistently. The Middlesbrough  and Wycombe claims don’t need to be resolved but there does need to be a process to take them forwards.

TBH, I’m grateful for a reply, whoever is answering must have a lot to deal with and the fact that they are answering everyone individually is really quite commendable.

 

 

[PistoldPete]

4 hours ago, Charlie George said:

Might be clutching at straws here,but don't we have to have a minimum amount of players of professional standing ? Marshall,Jags,Shinnie and Baldock all gone now leaves us seriously short of experienced pro's.

Plenry was made of this is August. Can anyone clarify the EFL's ruling on this ?

They are concerned we may not complete our fixtures. yet not allowing us to sign or even re-sign players.. and forcing us to sell players at giveaway prices . So we won't have enough fit players left  to play games anyway. 

 

[PistoldPete]

1 hour ago, angieram said:

It hasn't actually. They have been in touch with EFL and shared their reply to RT members and on Twitter. 

They have prepared an email template for fans to use with MPs and contacted the ones they can,  directly, sharing responses.

I haven't posted any of this on here because of the antagonism that people who aren't members show towards them whenever I do.

This board is not, some may be surprised to find out, the centre of the universe! 

I hope the tone of this reply matches that of those of Parry. 

Thers no way you could ever outdo Parry for arrogance angie. 

[i-Ram]

6 minutes ago, PistoldPete said:

So Morris could indemnify the claims. So could you. So it's all your fault. See how that works?

You keep waving your Mel Morris flag Pete ?

[Gritstone Ram]

12 minutes ago, BramcoteRam84 said:

Not sure I do agree with that Ian Redfern guy’s opinion on this. Makes his points well and clearly has some experience in insolvencies. But ignores the fact the Boro and Wycombe claims have been put on us while in administration which isn’t supported by law, and doesn’t dispute as such that such claims have been promoted to football creditors therefore whatever that figure is needs to be settled in full which makes any prospective purchase unworkable if they are the figures stated and through further negotiations with said parties cannot be reduced.

He also assumes the EFL are allowing the possibility for these cases to be dealt with following due process or in court in the future, my understanding from everything that has been reported (and none of us really know the true facts) is they want settlement and agreement on the claims before approving any administration exit. So Mel indemnifying the preferred bidders against future liability may be irrelevant anyway.

There have been a few people, including this guy and an ex-poster on here who IMO has been a sad loss to this forum who have been very vocal for a while on other social media platforms namely Twitter that we shouldn’t attach any blame to the EFL, Middlesbrough or Wycombe, or blame and all fixes lie at the door of and in the hands of Mel Morris. This article simply continues to push that Agenda.

Mel Morris is absolutely no 1 person to blame in this yes and he could make this a whole lot easier in many ways. However without these ridiculous illegal claims on the table from Wycombe and Boro, we would likely be exiting administration.

 

I think we all know where the blame lies but he’s living it up on the Sandbanks. He’s certainly not been seen in Derbyshire.

[PistoldPete]

3 minutes ago, Malty said:

I have also received a reply from Rick parry.

It’s  P&C, so I would not wish to share it. Notwithstanding, what I can share is that he is suggesting the EFLs insolvency policy and need to be applied consistently. The Middlesbrough  and Wycombe claims don’t need to be resolved but there does need to be a process to take them forwards.

TBH, I’m grateful for a reply, whoever is answering must have a lot to deal with and the fact that they are answering everyone individually is really quite commendable.

 

 

Yes I think the plus point is they are responding , and it seems genuinely to be Parry because there are trademark arrogance and blame gaming in many of the replies.

So in this reply about being consistent, did he explain what other cases there have been when clubs in administration have received ambulance chasing claims from rival clubs. And how did they deal with those , for consistency? What are those precdent cases he refers to?

[GboroRam]

Maybe I'm misunderstanding this, as it's fairly deep into legalese and that's certainly not my area of expertise. But Parry's comments to individual people emailing him don't sound to me like they are demanding the Wycombe and Boro threats be settled - not in as many words. It sounds like he's saying there's a standard process in EFL rules which means we should be looking at the internal mediation.

Wycombe and Boro aren't claims - there's no legal reason that we have to consider their request for payment. It's solely down to the EFL rules that say members with grievances need to use their framework to resolve them, and they won't allow the sale to proceed until these grievances are resolved.

So why don't the Administrators push the EFL to do that, at the earliest opportunity?

Then the EFL have to decide if the claims have merit - and if they decide they do, they truly have opened pandora's box on themselves. I think that could be the death knell of the football league, as every team can make a claim that something cost them points, which cost them places, which cost them money and promotion.

I also wonder how our wage bill is so high, when we've got such a small group of players with a lot of youth and academy stars in there. Surely they aren't a huge overhead on our wage bill?

 

[PistoldPete]

4 minutes ago, i-Ram said:

You keep waving your Mel Morris flag Pete ?

You started it up again. I thought we had a truce on that.

I mean really its a straight fight between EFL and the admin team with Gibson and Couhig as cheerleaders for the EFL. Most other people now seem to be cheerleaders for the Rams, lots of rival fans too I see.  

[Elwood P Dowd]

27 minutes ago, Elwood P Dowd said:

But  that doesn’t make sense he would be financially better off with the £20m loss, an indemnity would include Court Cost and, if the case was found, whatever the judge awarded to Boro and Wycombe in the way of compensation.

Once matters go to court the outcome is always in the balance, Mel’s indemnity might cost him £60 million if things went badly.

What If the judge awarded punitive damages ?

 

note

Personally my view is the claims have very little legal merit but you never know.

 

 

There is also another reason why Mel might be reluctant to provide an indemnity.

If Mel provided an indemnity Gibson might continue his action with renewed vigour simply because of Mel’s personal financial involvement.

[Ram-Alf]

15 minutes ago, Gaspode said:

To quote Simon Groome on Blue Peter “What a beautiful pair of knockers” - look it up on YouTube kiddies…..

I remember it well ?