The Administration Thread

[curb]

3 hours ago, BoroWill said:

Yeah, except he didn't, did he?

Yeah, no, except he did, didn’t he?

[BramcoteRam84]

3 hours ago, BoroWill said:

Good question, now that the "biggest stumbling block" has been out of the way for over a week I expect your takeover is imminent. Darn that Steve Gibson holding all of this up!

Think you’ll find the process will move fast now to further confirm that Gibson WAS the main stumbling block and until last week was pushing our club closer to extinction with his completely and utterly ridiculous claim which most of the football world disagrees with.

Completely understand why Boro fans laud him. As an owner of your club he has given you incredible backing and stood behind you for 35+ years, he bankrolled you to a league cup win and a European final. I can’t think of a more committed owner in all my years of being a football supporter.

But the way he has pursued this vendetta against Derby has been disgraceful, the only thing possibly more disgusting is how the EFL has allowed him to do it. Saint Gibson was not trying to save football with his Stance he wanted to win his battle of egos with Mel Morris. Therefore while he has been an incredible owner for Boro, to Derby supporters he will always be the devil incarnate.

[Comrade 86]

6 hours ago, David said:

His reply:

Had a similar response to my email to which I have responded as follows, with Margaret Beckett again CC'd:

Dear Mr Parry,

You infer that bar Derby County, every club in the country adheres to straight line amortisation policies – this is simply not true and it’s staggering that you would suggest as much. In 2015/16 Aston Villa were relegated from the Premier League, which allows a P & S loss of £105 million over three years, which then tapers down to £39 million over three years in the EFL Championship. It was therefore in Villa’s interests to put as many costs into their 2015/16 accounts to be absorbed by their Premier League P & S limit. Villa achieved this by charging an extra £79.6 million as a cost in the expense for impairment of the stadium and players (labelled ‘intangible assets’ in their accounts). No investigation was deemed necessary and no sanctions applied. There are too many other instances to list so I simply offer this particular one to illustrate that where the juggling of player values is concerned, there is one rule for Derby and another for everyone else.

If, as you claim, this amendment has been introduced ‘so there is no room for doubt’, does this not clearly infer there was doubt at the time the policy was in use? And given this has now been highlighted as a rather grey area, do you still maintain the sanctions applied are fair and fitting? Might I also ask what the EFL stance is on club’s selling their debts? Likewise, the pricing of players moving between clubs under the same ownership? The fact is that the EFL has spent over 2 years and no small amount of member club funds bringing Derby to task when a simple amendment, akin to that applied this week, could have been made as early as 2018 along with a request that Derby adopt a straight-line amortisation policy from thereon out.

It is also worth pointing out that the EFL, who claim to have ‘several accounts monitoring practices in place’ was made aware of the fact Derby County were using the ERV amortisation policy in 2018, yet chose not to bring this up with the club itself until 2020 by which time the relevant P & S period had closed. Had you not delayed the process until the 3-year period had elapsed, Derby would have been in a position to address the P & S threshold breaches through player sales or other means. Waiting until 2020, when the EFL was itself under threat of litigation from Middlesbrough FC, meant that Derby were not afforded any opportunity to bring either their accounting practices or their FFP overspend into line. With these facts in mind, I ask you again, do you still maintain the sanctions applied to Derby are fair and fitting?

Frankly, if the EFL is to retain even a shred of credibility, the sanctions applied to Derby County need to be reviewed immediately as the punishments far outweigh the ‘crime’. Failure to do so would result in the not unfair assumption that the current EFL board has brought the League into disrepute and that as such, those in question ought to be considering whether or not their positions remain tenable.

=====================================================================
The way I see it, this is absolutely NOT the time to be easing up on these clowns. Their actions this week yet again compromise the club's chances of survival in the Championship and as long as they continue to act in this fashion, we must keep boots firmly on their throats.

We fight to the end!

 

 

[PistoldPete]

2 minutes ago, 86 Hair Islands said:

Had a similar response to my email to which I have responded as follows, with Margaret Beckett again CC'd:

Dear Mr Parry,

You infer that bar Derby County, every club in the country adheres to straight line amortisation policies – this is simply not true and it’s staggering that you would suggest as much. In 2015/16 Aston Villa were relegated from the Premier League, which allows a P & S loss of £105 million over three years, which then tapers down to £39 million over three years in the EFL Championship. It was therefore in Villa’s interests to put as many costs into their 2015/16 accounts to be absorbed by their Premier League P & S limit. Villa achieved this by charging an extra £79.6 million as a cost in the expense for impairment of the stadium and players (labelled ‘intangible assets’ in their accounts). No investigation was deemed necessary and no sanctions applied. There are too many other instances to list so I simply offer this particular one to illustrate that where the juggling of player values is concerned, there is one rule for Derby and another for everyone else.

If, as you claim, this amendment has been introduced ‘so there is no room for doubt’, does this not clearly infer there was doubt at the time the policy was in use? And given this has now been highlighted as a rather grey area, do you still maintain the sanctions applied are fair and fitting? Might I also ask what the EFL stance is on club’s selling their debts? Likewise, the pricing of players moving between clubs under the same ownership? The fact is that the EFL has spent over 2 years and no small amount of member club funds bringing Derby to task when a simple amendment, akin to that applied this week, could have been made as early as 2018 along with a request that Derby adopt a straight-line amortisation policy from thereon out.

It is also worth pointing out that the EFL, who claim to have ‘several accounts monitoring practices in place’ was made aware of the fact Derby County were using the ERV amortisation policy in 2018, yet chose not to bring this up with the club itself until 2020 by which time the relevant P & S period had closed. Had you not delayed the process until the 3-year period had elapsed, Derby would have been in a position to address the P & S threshold breaches through player sales or other means. Waiting until 2020, when the EFL was itself under threat of litigation from Middlesbrough FC, meant that Derby were not afforded any opportunity to bring either their accounting practices or their FFP overspend into line. With these facts in mind, I ask you again, do you still maintain the sanctions applied to Derby are fair and fitting?

Frankly, if the EFL is to retain even a shred of credibility, the sanctions applied to Derby County need to be reviewed immediately as the punishments far outweigh the ‘crime’. Failure to do so would result in the not unfair assumption that the current EFL board has brought the League into disrepute and that as such, those in question ought to be considering whether or not their positions remain tenable.

=====================================================================
The way I see it, this is absolutely NOT the time to be easing up on these clowns. Their actions this week yet again compromise the club's chances of survival in the Championship and as long as they continue to act in this fashion, we must keep boots firmly on their throats.

We fight to the end!

 

 

Derby’s amortisation policy was disclosed in 2017 in the notes and Efl were aware of how it worked. Maguire further drew their attention to it in 2018. 
 

[JuanFloEvraTheCocu'sNesta]

So to be clear, the EFL can go back and alter the FFP thresholds, can go back and change their minds on accounting policies and Boro and Wycombe can go back and bring retrospective action against Derby but Derby cannot go back and argue anything at all?

Right then.

Edited February 18, 2022 by JuanFloEvraTheCocu'sNesta

[Phoenix]

30 minutes ago, Gee SCREAMER !! said:

If they don't try and dump another -15 on us in someway when exiting admin, I'll happily film myself eating my own underpants and post it.

Please don't.

[Comrade 86]

8 minutes ago, PistoldPete said:

Derby’s amortisation policy was disclosed in 2017 in the notes and Efl were aware of how it worked. Maguire further drew their attention to it in 2018. 
 

Yes, I'm aware of this, the hint being that the multi-layered checks and balances they claim to comprise their review processes are BS and that they did not really have any idea what we were doing until Maguire emailed them to highlight the matter. If you believe otherwise then I'm afraid you are being somewhat naïve.

[PistoldPete]

6 minutes ago, 86 Hair Islands said:

Yes, I'm aware of this, the hint being that the multi-layered checks and balances they claim to comprise their review processes are BS and that they did not really have any idea what we were doing until Maguire emailed them to highlight the matter. If you believe otherwise then I'm afraid you are being somewhat naïve.

But even maguire who was on this forum only this week to actually confirm it says that the EFL told him to get stuffed in 2018.

so the trigger was later than that.. I think when parry took over in august 2019. And having Gibson bullying him over the stadium sale. Then they decided to tack on the amortisation thing as an afterthought. 

Even after the charges were made EFL’s former Finance Director said the charges were a load of rubbish. So they cannot have thought at the time there was anything wrong with Derby’s accounts.
 

 

[Archie]

1 hour ago, Oldben said:

https://www.otbfootball.net/the-efl-are-simply-not-fit-for-purpose/

Stopped reading at this point!

I must stress, there are plenty of exceptional football club owners currently operating in the football league. Steve Gibson, Andy Holt, Tony Bloom (owner of now Premier League Brighton of course) and Steve Lansdown all spring to mind.

 

[BramcoteRam84]

I sort of understand why the embargo restrictions are being applied to us. Clearly with no funding in place we can’t sign anyone. I do have an issue with the intent of the business plan, I thought it was more to control what the club does to make sure it doesn’t get into a similar mess, but it very much seems to be a punitive measure to stop clubs taking advantage not paying debts and getting a new owner in who suddenly splashes cash while several creditors were forced to take a hair cut, and this is therefore unfair to clubs who do comply with the rules (or should we say bend the rules to a level that Steve Gibson allows). Now in isolation that seems reasonable, but throw in a 12 point deduction and then a further 15 if creditors are not paid in line with EFL requirements it becomes massively disproportionate. Furthermore once again it’s not how business works, you wouldn’t place trading restrictions on a company who has been bought out of administration where the ownership have proof of financial backing (im not an accountant or administrator so will stand to be corrected on that one)

However whether we like it or not, those rules have been in place for a while. The club would be aware of the rules and implications of going into administration, therefore we can’t really complain. It all comes back to the actions of one man - Mel Morris. He remains the number 1 person to blame for this shitstorm we find ourselves in.

Edited February 18, 2022 by BramcoteRam84

[Comrade 86]

6 minutes ago, PistoldPete said:

But even maguire who was on this forum only this week to actually confirm it says that the EFL told him to get stuffed in 2018.

so the trigger was later than that.. I think when parry took over in august 2019. And having Gibson bullying him over the stadium sale. Then they decided to tack on the amortisation thing as an afterthought. 

Even after the charges were made EFL’s former Finance Director said the charges were a load of rubbish. So they cannot have thought at the time there was anything wrong with Derby’s accounts.

Pete, you need to read what people write and not simply launch strawmen around just for the sake of argument ?‍♀️

[Ram-Alf]

4 minutes ago, 86 Hair Islands said:

Pete, you need to read what people write and not simply launch strawmen around just for the sake of argument ?‍♀️

Yeh!

[Chester40]

2 hours ago, angieram said:

Those minutes make pretty depressing reading imo. 

Looks like we'll struggle to re-sign players or bring in free agents.

And EFL still trying to say the Middlesbrough claim isn't over until they hear about it or that it isn't what was holding up progress.

Given how snarky the tone of their answers are, I'd say there is little chance of them meeting us halfway on anything.

Agreed.

The march, the questions in Parliament,  MPs demanding meetings....

Yet Parry is still typing away the same old cr@p to David and pretty much nothing has changed. The EFL seems impervious to outside influence, or maybe are going down swinging... but regardless those answers do not fill me with hope.

[Comrade 86]

58 minutes ago, 86 Hair Islands said:

Had a similar response to my email to which I have responded as follows, with Margaret Beckett again CC'd:

Dear Mr Parry,

You infer that bar Derby County, every club in the country adheres to straight line amortisation policies – this is simply not true and it’s staggering that you would suggest as much. In 2015/16 Aston Villa were relegated from the Premier League, which allows a P & S loss of £105 million over three years, which then tapers down to £39 million over three years in the EFL Championship. It was therefore in Villa’s interests to put as many costs into their 2015/16 accounts to be absorbed by their Premier League P & S limit. Villa achieved this by charging an extra £79.6 million as a cost in the expense for impairment of the stadium and players (labelled ‘intangible assets’ in their accounts). No investigation was deemed necessary and no sanctions applied. There are too many other instances to list so I simply offer this particular one to illustrate that where the juggling of player values is concerned, there is one rule for Derby and another for everyone else.

If, as you claim, this amendment has been introduced ‘so there is no room for doubt’, does this not clearly infer there was doubt at the time the policy was in use? And given this has now been highlighted as a rather grey area, do you still maintain the sanctions applied are fair and fitting? Might I also ask what the EFL stance is on club’s selling their debts? Likewise, the pricing of players moving between clubs under the same ownership? The fact is that the EFL has spent over 2 years and no small amount of member club funds bringing Derby to task when a simple amendment, akin to that applied this week, could have been made as early as 2018 along with a request that Derby adopt a straight-line amortisation policy from thereon out.

It is also worth pointing out that the EFL, who claim to have ‘several accounts monitoring practices in place’ was made aware of the fact Derby County were using the ERV amortisation policy in 2018, yet chose not to bring this up with the club itself until 2020 by which time the relevant P & S period had closed. Had you not delayed the process until the 3-year period had elapsed, Derby would have been in a position to address the P & S threshold breaches through player sales or other means. Waiting until 2020, when the EFL was itself under threat of litigation from Middlesbrough FC, meant that Derby were not afforded any opportunity to bring either their accounting practices or their FFP overspend into line. With these facts in mind, I ask you again, do you still maintain the sanctions applied to Derby are fair and fitting?

Frankly, if the EFL is to retain even a shred of credibility, the sanctions applied to Derby County need to be reviewed immediately as the punishments far outweigh the ‘crime’. Failure to do so would result in the not unfair assumption that the current EFL board has brought the League into disrepute and that as such, those in question ought to be considering whether or not their positions remain tenable.

=====================================================================
The way I see it, this is absolutely NOT the time to be easing up on these clowns. Their actions this week yet again compromise the club's chances of survival in the Championship and as long as they continue to act in this fashion, we must keep boots firmly on their throats.

We fight to the end!

He's just replied. I honestly don't think he has a clue what he's talking about. It's almost as if he's asked someone how to respond but forgotten what they actually said. I also love the inference that as he only joined the EFL in 2019, he need not worry about what went on beforehand and has no responsibility to ensure any wrongs are put right if the pre-dated his tenure! His main line of defence appears to be:

Q: Dear Rick, when is a rule change, not a rule change?

A: When it impacts Derby County, Then it's only a 'clarification' ?

Dear Mr XXX

I only arrived at the EFL in late 2019 so I cannot comment too much on what did, or didn’t, happen before.

Accounting for intangible assets requires two separate calculations.

The first is amortisation, which is a systematic allocation of the cost over the useful life.

What every club does is to assume a zero residual value and write off equal amounts  each year.

So if a player is acquired for £10 million on a 5 year contract,  the annual charge is £2 million.

What Derby County were doing was to assume a terminal value of, say , £8 million at the end of year 4  so the annual charge for the firsr four years would be £500,000.

This is patently not acceptable under accounting standards.

As was finally proven by the appeal panel.

In changing the P& S rules we have simply clarified the point. It is uncontroversial and it marks no change at all.

WELL THANKS FOR CLEARING THAT UP RICK ?

He continues...

It simply means we shouldn’t require panels to interpret accounting standards.

Could this have been done in 2018?  Yes, but it wasn’t.  This doesn’t make it wrong to do it now.

Just as it wasn’t wrong to outlaw stadium sales to club owners. Clubs willingly voted for this because it is patently ludicrous to have rules which allow clubs to part with their principal asset. So Derby County were able to do it. The majority of clubs will not be able to.

Impairment is a different calculation and is still necessary each year.

Accounting standards require to ensure assets are not overstated.

I have no idea whether Aston Villa abused this when they were in the Premier League.

But they have certainly used straight line amortisation.

Given the sustained P&S breaches the sanction against Derby County is entirely appropraite.

If you haven’t dome so aleready you might find it interesting to read the decision of the appeal panel.

The club could have decided at any time not to overspend.

Kind regards

Rick Parry

I'll respond at some point this weekend but reading this steaming hot pile of digital detritus, it's actually quite hard to know where to begin ?‍♀️

Edited February 18, 2022 by 86 Hair Islands

[Steve How Hard?]

13 minutes ago, 86 Hair Islands said:

He's just replied. I honestly don't think he has a clue what he's talking about. It's almost as if he's asked someone how to respond but forgotten what they actually said. I also love the inference that as he only joined the EFL in 2019, he need not worry about what went on beforehand and has no responsibility to ensure any wrongs are put right if the pre-dated his tenure! His main line of defence appears to be:

Q: Dear Rick, when is a rule change, not a rule change?

A: When it impacts Derby County, Then it's only a 'clarification' ?

Dear Mr XXX

I only arrived at the EFL in late 2019 so I cannot comment too much on what did, or didn’t, happen before.

Accounting for intangible assets requires two separate calculations.

The first is amortisation, which is a systematic allocation of the cost over the useful life.

What every club does is to assume a zero residual value and write off equal amounts  each year.

So if a player is acquired for £10 million on a 5 year contract,  the annual charge is £2 million.

What Derby County were doing was to assume a terminal value of, say , £8 million at the end of year 4  so the annual charge for the firsr four years would be £500,000.

This is patently not acceptable under accounting standards.

As was finally proven by the appeal panel.

In changing the P& S rules we have simply clarified the point. It is uncontroversial and it marks no change at all.

WELL THANKS FOR CLEARING THAT UP RICK ?

He continues...

It simply means we shouldn’t require panels to interpret accounting standards.

Could this have been done in 2018?  Yes, but it wasn’t.  This doesn’t make it wrong to do it now.

Just as it wasn’t wrong to outlaw stadium sales to club owners. Clubs willingly voted for this because it is patently ludicrous to have rules which allow clubs to part with their principal asset. So Derby County were able to do it. The majority of clubs will not be able to.

Impairment is a different calculation and is still necessary each year.

Accounting standards require to ensure assets are not overstated.

I have no idea whether Aston Villa abused this when they were in the Premier League.

But they have certainly used straight line amortisation.

Given the sustained P&S breaches the sanction against Derby County is entirely appropraite.

If you haven’t dome so aleready you might find it interesting to read the decision of the appeal panel.

The club could have decided at any time not to overspend.

Kind regards

Rick Parry

I'll respond at some point this weekend but reading this steaming hot pile of digital detritus, it's actually quite hard to know where to begin ?‍♀️

Keep digging Rick lad. You'll reach Middlesbrough eventually. 

[Ghost of Clough]

16 minutes ago, rammieib said:

Sorry but the clubs could not have provisioned for a sum of covid allowance money which has not yet been voted on/in and therefore reduce this from the losses.

This post seems to contradict your earlier post where you even did the maths to explain it that for 20/21 We would have been under the 39m.

Quite simply, we’ve been stitched up again. 

The rules have clearly stated for a while now that allowances were there for Covid losses in the 19/20 and 20/21 seasons. However, it was never made public what, if any, limit there was. The belief was this was unlimited, hence the uproar when Stoke were claiming £30m Covid impairment.

"Covid costs" are in the rules as far back as September 2020.

If £1.96m over budget was with a £5m allowance, we would have passed with actual losses.

[Gee SCREAMER !!]

34 minutes ago, 86 Hair Islands said:

He's just replied. I honestly don't think he has a clue what he's talking about. It's almost as if he's asked someone how to respond but forgotten what they actually said. I also love the inference that as he only joined the EFL in 2019, he need not worry about what went on beforehand and has no responsibility to ensure any wrongs are put right if the pre-dated his tenure! His main line of defence appears to be:

Q: Dear Rick, when is a rule change, not a rule change?

A: When it impacts Derby County, Then it's only a 'clarification' ?

Dear Mr XXX

I only arrived at the EFL in late 2019 so I cannot comment too much on what did, or didn’t, happen before.

Accounting for intangible assets requires two separate calculations.

The first is amortisation, which is a systematic allocation of the cost over the useful life.

What every club does is to assume a zero residual value and write off equal amounts  each year.

So if a player is acquired for £10 million on a 5 year contract,  the annual charge is £2 million.

What Derby County were doing was to assume a terminal value of, say , £8 million at the end of year 4  so the annual charge for the firsr four years would be £500,000.

This is patently not acceptable under accounting standards.

As was finally proven by the appeal panel.

In changing the P& S rules we have simply clarified the point. It is uncontroversial and it marks no change at all.

WELL THANKS FOR CLEARING THAT UP RICK ?

He continues...

It simply means we shouldn’t require panels to interpret accounting standards.

Could this have been done in 2018?  Yes, but it wasn’t.  This doesn’t make it wrong to do it now.

Just as it wasn’t wrong to outlaw stadium sales to club owners. Clubs willingly voted for this because it is patently ludicrous to have rules which allow clubs to part with their principal asset. So Derby County were able to do it. The majority of clubs will not be able to.

Impairment is a different calculation and is still necessary each year.

Accounting standards require to ensure assets are not overstated.

I have no idea whether Aston Villa abused this when they were in the Premier League.

But they have certainly used straight line amortisation.

Given the sustained P&S breaches the sanction against Derby County is entirely appropraite.

If you haven’t dome so aleready you might find it interesting to read the decision of the appeal panel.

The club could have decided at any time not to overspend.

Kind regards

Rick Parry

I'll respond at some point this weekend but reading this steaming hot pile of digital detritus, it's actually quite hard to know where to begin ?‍♀️

Probably these and ask him if he needs a new abacus.

[angieram]

1 minute ago, Gee SCREAMER !! said:

Probably these and ask him if he needs a new abacus.

And spell-checker! 

[Ghost of Clough]

34 minutes ago, 86 Hair Islands said:

What Derby County were doing was to assume a terminal value of, say , £8 million at the end of year 4  so the annual charge for the firsr four years would be £500,000.

Rick probably could do with reading the decision document again...

34 minutes ago, 86 Hair Islands said:

So Derby County were able to [sell the stadium] The majority of clubs will not be able to.

Not quite true. All clubs had the option to sell their stadium (or training ground) when the rules allowed it 

34 minutes ago, 86 Hair Islands said:

Given the sustained P&S breaches the sanction against Derby County is entirely appropraite.

Debatable

34 minutes ago, 86 Hair Islands said:

If you haven’t dome so aleready you might find it interesting to read the decision of the appeal panel.

Ironic

34 minutes ago, 86 Hair Islands said:

The club could have decided at any time not to overspend.

The club weren't overspending at the time when using the policies they felt were acceptable.

[PistoldPete]

56 minutes ago, 86 Hair Islands said:

Pete, you need to read what people write and not simply launch strawmen around just for the sake of argument ?‍♀️

86HI I am actually agreeing with you, in fact reinforcing what you say about the retrospective nature of the action by EFL. I actually think they did understand what we were doing at first but then the new guys took over and they didn't understand it  , or pretended not to understand it and said it wasn't within the rules.   And I agree Parry talks bull poo, almost always. 

 

What he is saying is rubbish that you should have to asume a player leaves at the end of his existing contract and apply straight line amortisation. Why? We spent £2.5 million on Weimann and three years later he was still worth £2.5 million so we decided to sell him rather than let him leave for nothing. We could have renewed his contract but he was on high wages. So we sold him. Unfortunately we then bought Jozefzoon but that was a different problem.