Mel, did he really eat my hamster?

[AndyinLiverpool]

1 minute ago, AbuDerbyDave said:

Couldn’t you have shown the one where she’s tapping her fingers?

Her what?

[AbuDerbyDave]

2 minutes ago, AndyinLiverpool said:

Her what?

Was there anything else in the gif then ?

[RadioactiveWaste]

Mel gambled big and lost.

His response was to continue to gamble and come up with what he thought were nifty manouvers to try and cover it off until he got a big win.

He didn't get his big win, he got his comeuppance for the accounts, couldn't sell the club because of his previous shennanigines............

Hard to feel sorry, hard not to conclude it's his fault...............

[Foreveram]

[Derbados]

2 hours ago, Truckle said:

I don’t understand why we are all so keen to blame Mel rather than the EFL. 

The problem with laying the blame at Mel’s door is that the logic just doesn’t add up.  It relies on 3 pillars:

• Mel is as thick as mince
• He actively decided to ruin and devalue an asset he owns
• He is some kind of agent who intentionally bought Derby to ruin it.

Let’s assume for a second that Mel Morris is neither stupid nor intent on ruining the club he supports, then you really have to ask – how does any of it make sense?

There is an alternative narrative to the ‘Mel ate my hamster’ view of the world. What he did during his time was try to get us promoted by sailing as close to the limit of FFP as possible, just like every other club with a reasonably minted owner.  Where he massively failed was in not having the foresight to build a time machine.

When we submitted the financial figures to the EFL on 30th June 2016 the EFL signed-off on those figures. As a result Mel based his future spending plans on how much he could put into the club while staying within FFP using that method. He funded the club on this basis for the next 3 years, without a murmur from the EFL.

Let’s say that the EFL had been even half-way competent – it’s a stretch I know, but bear with me – and had said on the 30th of June 2016.

“Mr Morris, we don’t think you should amortise in this way, can you resubmit using the previous method?”

What do you think he would have done? Given that he’s not stupid or intent on ruining the club I’m betting he’d have said:

“Right you are, I’ll change my plans accordingly”

And over the next couple of years sold Tom Laurence and not bought Krystian Beilik.  From the figures that have been quoted I think would have been enough to comply with FFP, and if it wasn’t he would have sold someone else, wouldn’t he?  Given the alternative was to destroy a really valuable asset he owned I don’t think that is an unreasonable assumption.  I would argue the EFL retrospectively moving the goal posts and a global pandemic that disproportionately hits the best supported teams are why we are where we are rather than the blame all laying at Mel’s door.

Go to bed Mel, you’re drunk

[sage]

2 hours ago, Truckle said:

I don’t understand why we are all so keen to blame Mel rather than the EFL. 

The problem with laying the blame at Mel’s door is that the logic just doesn’t add up.  It relies on 3 pillars:

• Mel is as thick as mince
• He actively decided to ruin and devalue an asset he owns
• He is some kind of agent who intentionally bought Derby to ruin it.

Let’s assume for a second that Mel Morris is neither stupid nor intent on ruining the club he supports, then you really have to ask – how does any of it make sense?

There is an alternative narrative to the ‘Mel ate my hamster’ view of the world. What he did during his time was try to get us promoted by sailing as close to the limit of FFP as possible, just like every other club with a reasonably minted owner.  Where he massively failed was in not having the foresight to build a time machine.

When we submitted the financial figures to the EFL on 30th June 2016 the EFL signed-off on those figures. As a result Mel based his future spending plans on how much he could put into the club while staying within FFP using that method. He funded the club on this basis for the next 3 years, without a murmur from the EFL.

Let’s say that the EFL had been even half-way competent – it’s a stretch I know, but bear with me – and had said on the 30th of June 2016.

“Mr Morris, we don’t think you should amortise in this way, can you resubmit using the previous method?”

What do you think he would have done? Given that he’s not stupid or intent on ruining the club I’m betting he’d have said:

“Right you are, I’ll change my plans accordingly”

And over the next couple of years sold Tom Laurence and not bought Krystian Beilik.  From the figures that have been quoted I think would have been enough to comply with FFP, and if it wasn’t he would have sold someone else, wouldn’t he?  Given the alternative was to destroy a really valuable asset he owned I don’t think that is an unreasonable assumption.  I would argue the EFL retrospectively moving the goal posts and a global pandemic that disproportionately hits the best supported teams are why we are where we are rather than the blame all laying at Mel’s door.

[ck-]

2 hours ago, Truckle said:

I don’t understand why we are all so keen to blame Mel rather than the EFL. 

The problem with laying the blame at Mel’s door is that the logic just doesn’t add up.  It relies on 3 pillars:

• Mel is as thick as mince
• He actively decided to ruin and devalue an asset he owns
• He is some kind of agent who intentionally bought Derby to ruin it.

Let’s assume for a second that Mel Morris is neither stupid nor intent on ruining the club he supports, then you really have to ask – how does any of it make sense?

There is an alternative narrative to the ‘Mel ate my hamster’ view of the world. What he did during his time was try to get us promoted by sailing as close to the limit of FFP as possible, just like every other club with a reasonably minted owner.  Where he massively failed was in not having the foresight to build a time machine.

When we submitted the financial figures to the EFL on 30th June 2016 the EFL signed-off on those figures. As a result Mel based his future spending plans on how much he could put into the club while staying within FFP using that method. He funded the club on this basis for the next 3 years, without a murmur from the EFL.

Let’s say that the EFL had been even half-way competent – it’s a stretch I know, but bear with me – and had said on the 30th of June 2016.

“Mr Morris, we don’t think you should amortise in this way, can you resubmit using the previous method?”

What do you think he would have done? Given that he’s not stupid or intent on ruining the club I’m betting he’d have said:

“Right you are, I’ll change my plans accordingly”

And over the next couple of years sold Tom Laurence and not bought Krystian Beilik.  From the figures that have been quoted I think would have been enough to comply with FFP, and if it wasn’t he would have sold someone else, wouldn’t he?  Given the alternative was to destroy a really valuable asset he owned I don’t think that is an unreasonable assumption.  I would argue the EFL retrospectively moving the goal posts and a global pandemic that disproportionately hits the best supported teams are why we are where we are rather than the blame all laying at Mel’s door.

And if my Aunty had balls, she’d be my Uncle

[Yani P]

1 hour ago, AbuDerbyDave said:

Couldn’t you have shown the one where she’s tapping her fingers?

Was she tapping her fingers?

[LazloW]

I actually agree with a lot of what you've said there in relation to FFP. There is plenty of blame to go around for that, but the EFL should take plenty as there were ways in which the mess could have been sorted without constantly pushing for a points deduction. They also know the whole FFP thing is massively flawed, but still decided to make life as difficult as possible for us.  Even so, if FFP were the sum-total of our problems, we could've stomached the 9 point deduction and still have a reasonable chance of staying up.

The administration is a completely different thing and must be all down to Mel I'm afraid. Either he ran out of money (in which case he should've reined in spending earlier) or decided to stop providing the funding (in which case, while I understand it can't be much fun peeing £1m a month up a wall, he took on that responsibility when he bought us and with or without COVID allowed things to get this bad). Putting us into administration definitely confined us to League 1, probably means selling whatever few assets we have left, means we'll be struggling on a shoestring for years and, ultimately, puts the club at risk of going under completely and disappearing. That is completely unforgiveable.

[Day]

When Mel went public with his intentions to sell, I made a suggestion, write an autobiography when this is all over, and I hope he does once the dust settles.

What happened, what was the tipping point that saw him pull the plug, how did we manage to rack up this huge debt to HMRC when Fawaz down the A52 was facing winding up orders every couple of months.

Whilst ultimately his decision cost jobs, left behind a lot of debt to local businesses, which I am a creditor myself, leaving the existence of this club in jeopardy, I can’t sit here today and lay all the blame at his door, of course he must accept his part in this, not suggesting for a second he completely blameless.

Being a long time supporter of Mel, I have largely avoided discussions around him as there are still questions that I feel need answering, more clarity of what went on, closure. It would be easy to sit here and call him all the names under the sun, but I feel like I owe him the opportunity to explain, I hope he does find a way as his final Radio Derby interview didn’t really explain anything we didn’t already know, no gaps in the timeline were filled, and it’s those gaps which have left so many questions.

Do not think I am here to defend Mel, only Mel can defend himself, I have no intention of getting into drawn out debates as it will only cause more anger and frustration when right now we should be focussing on the future of this club.

You can drag up posts from the past that I and others made, but they were made with the information that we had at the time, others that raised concerns, had their doubts whilst hurt may feel smug with “I told you so”, which is their choice. I have made my enemies just from running this platform, sure there’s a few out there finger pointing.

However Mel came in, spent money, created excitement and dared us to dream which is exactly what football fans want, we had no idea it was ever to be a poo or literally bust, we were led to believe that we were on the line, pushing it at times which many clubs do, but that line was dragged out of reach when the EFL decided to review our accounts over previous seasons, accounts which they signed off.

I still to this day believe that EFL, Boro and Wycombe must also take some responsibility in all this. I also don’t think we can just ignore the impact that Covid has had, both financially and personally. Mel did not have a crystal ball, for all this to come at a time when trying to sell the club placed a fuckload of barriers in the way.

Whilst you can argue you shouldn’t live life on the edge, be prepared for the worst, I have been around 40 years and this is the first global pandemic which has changed life as we know it and seen sporting events played behind closed doors. Over the next 12 months I’m sure we will see others start to show the impact that alone has had without the EFL on their backs.

His own health issues which remain private and may not have played no part in his decision, but many things happen in life that can make you question your own mortality, did his, was his primary concern his family where the outside abuse questioned his financial support? I honestly don’t know and not trying to manufacture excuses here, losing close friends, illness, it can and does make you question where you are yourself in life.

I don’t know if we will ever see a book, if some already feel they have closure and wouldn’t be interested or believe a word he says, I for one believe it would give closure those that supported him during his tenure and feel hurt with how the club has been left, all the memories which should have been left have now been tarnished, including the one at Elland Road.

Life does go on though, I'm not going to spend another day questioning why as another mental drain that I have no desire to entertain.

[Archie]

3 hours ago, RoyMac5 said:

Because he's put us into administration. This even has the possibility of liquidation, that is NO club.

Guilty as charged.

Spot on RoyMac5. Any 'fan' to knowingly put their own club into administration is guilty as charged. Most of us would probably put our modest houses up as collateral to avoid this but the multi-multi millionaire shrugged his shoulders and walked away. 

By the way, I'm still not convinced he personally lost a great deal out of all of this and certainly nowhere near the 200 million touted. 

I don't know how he shuts his eyes and sleeps at night. The guilt alone would ruin me. 

Edited December 31, 2021 by Archie

[Red Ram]

Mel Morris inherited a squad panistakingly built on a shoestring budget by Nigel Clough over a number of seasons. It came within a whisker of getting promoted under Steve McClaren. That side could have survived and prospered in the Prem with a few key additions.

Once that squad missed out in the play-off final against QPR, Mel spent upwards of £50 million over the next 5 years or so, making it progressively weaker. He tripled the wage bill in the process, to the point where the annual wage bill was in excess of the club's annual turnover. Basically he gambled, lost and then did the classic gambler's fallacy thing - kept gambling to try and recover his losses. We ended up in breach of FFP in 3 of the 4 rolling three year windows within this period - hence the points deduction, which was actually significantly lower than the maximum tartiff that could have been imposed by the ELF. The HMRC winding up order was filed in January 2020 which was before COVID had hit the UK so it's literally rewriting history to try and blame COVID.

Mel, quite simply, massively overspent and then tried every trick in the book to massage the figures, including, and this keeps getting overlooked, changing the amortisation method without making it sufficiently clear to the EFL what the changes were. By the way, the EFL do not sign off accounts - this is another often repeated misconception. The club and then it's auditors sign off their own accounts. However the EFL do  have a duty to investigate and penalise any potential breaches of the rules that come to their attention. All the EFL have done is enforce the rules agreed on by all it's members including Derby. They had no choice but to do so. Blaming the EFL is like blaming the iceberg rather than the captain of the titanic.

Add to the above the decision to put us into administration which has, at best, more or less guaranteeed relegation to League One and, at worst, put the very survival of the club at risk. This, despite repeated previous assurances that he would continue to fund the club until it got a buyer.

I'm sure Mel geniunely wanted the best for the club and was desperate to suceed but the end result of his tenure is that Derby County may not exist in it's current form by this time next year. So yes, he ate your hamster.

 

 

Edited December 31, 2021 by Red Ram

[PistoldPete]

1 hour ago, Red Ram said:

Mel Morris inherited a squad panistakingly built on a shoestring budget by Nigel Clough over a number of seasons. It came within a whisker of getting promoted under Steve McClaren. That side could have survived and prospered in the Prem with a few key additions.

Once that squad missed out in the play-off final against QPR, Mel spent upwards of £50 million over the next 5 years or so, making it progressively weaker. He tripled the wage bill in the process, to the point where the annual wage bill was in excess of the club's annual turnover. Basically he gambled, lost and then did the classic gambler's fallacy thing - kept gambling to try and recover his losses. We ended up in breach of FFP in 3 of the 4 rolling three year windows within this period - hence the points deduction, which was actually significantly lower than the maximum tartiff that could have been imposed by the ELF. The HMRC winding up order was filed in January 2020 which was before COVID had hit the UK so it's literally rewriting history to try and blame COVID.

Mel, quite simply, massively overspent and then tried every trick in the book to massage the figures, including, and this keeps getting overlooked, changing the amortisation method without making it sufficiently clear to the EFL what the changes were. By the way, the EFL do not sign off accounts - this is another often repeated misconception. The club and then it's auditors sign off their own accounts. However the EFL do  have a duty to investigate and penalise any potential breaches of the rules that come to their attention. All the EFL have done is enforce the rules agreed on by all it's members including Derby. They had no choice but to do so. Blaming the EFL is like blaming the iceberg rather than the captain of the titanic.

Add to the above the decision to put us into administration which has, at best, more or less guaranteeed relegation to League One and, at worst, put the very survival of the club at risk. This, despite repeated previous assurances that he would continue to fund the club until it got a buyer.

I'm sure Mel geniunely wanted the best for the club and was desperate to suceed but the end result of his tenure is that Derby County may not exist in it's current form by this time next year. So yes, he ate your hamster.

 

 

The winding up order in January 2020 was withdrawn after a few days. The bill was settled, so that's a non-issue. The current bill is due to the lack of income during the pandemic lockdown and reduction in income ever since. The admin team have estimated a funding gap due to COVID of between £30m and £40 m. are they rewriting history?

The notes to the accounts in 2016 made it clear we had changed the amortsiation method and if anything EFL thought we were using a more non-compliant method than were actually were ..using non zero values for players who coudl leave on Bosmans .  So if they were misled they were misled into thinking we were very non-compliant when we were not. So why didn't they bring action earlier? There really is no excuse for the EFL to be ducking us around like that. Your stuff in bold is itself very misleading and wrong.

Also the EFL redid the accounts for us , we accepted their redone accounts just to bring it to a close doesn't mean their accounts were any more right than ours. They do not have a duty to seek  penalties for potential breaches (or even actual breaches, necessarily) , they were just throwing mud and hoping some would stick. And they were seeking to relegate us if they possibly could any which they could.  

So that's why the fans are still singing "duck the EFL" and really hoping that we can overturn the 21 point deduction, stay in the Championship and really stick two fingers at them.     

 

Edited December 31, 2021 by PistoldPete

[RoyMac5]

12 minutes ago, PistoldPete said:

The winding up order in January 2020 was withdrawn after a few days. The bill was settled, so that's a non-issue.

Not a non-issue. It's indicative of the way the clubs finances were run!

[EtoileSportiveDeDerby]

He thought he was clever. He wasn't (In this instance). Simple as that.

Edited December 31, 2021 by EtoileSportiveDeDerby

[RAM1966]

5 hours ago, Red Ram said:

Mel Morris inherited a squad panistakingly built on a shoestring budget by Nigel Clough over a number of seasons. It came within a whisker of getting promoted under Steve McClaren. That side could have survived and prospered in the Prem with a few key additions.

Once that squad missed out in the play-off final against QPR, Mel spent upwards of £50 million over the next 5 years or so, making it progressively weaker. He tripled the wage bill in the process, to the point where the annual wage bill was in excess of the club's annual turnover. Basically he gambled, lost and then did the classic gambler's fallacy thing - kept gambling to try and recover his losses. We ended up in breach of FFP in 3 of the 4 rolling three year windows within this period - hence the points deduction, which was actually significantly lower than the maximum tartiff that could have been imposed by the ELF. The HMRC winding up order was filed in January 2020 which was before COVID had hit the UK so it's literally rewriting history to try and blame COVID.

Mel, quite simply, massively overspent and then tried every trick in the book to massage the figures, including, and this keeps getting overlooked, changing the amortisation method without making it sufficiently clear to the EFL what the changes were. By the way, the EFL do not sign off accounts - this is another often repeated misconception. The club and then it's auditors sign off their own accounts. However the EFL do  have a duty to investigate and penalise any potential breaches of the rules that come to their attention. All the EFL have done is enforce the rules agreed on by all it's members including Derby. They had no choice but to do so. Blaming the EFL is like blaming the iceberg rather than the captain of the titanic.

Add to the above the decision to put us into administration which has, at best, more or less guaranteeed relegation to League One and, at worst, put the very survival of the club at risk. This, despite repeated previous assurances that he would continue to fund the club until it got a buyer.

I'm sure Mel geniunely wanted the best for the club and was desperate to suceed but the end result of his tenure is that Derby County may not exist in it's current form by this time next year. So yes, he ate your hamster.

 

 

I think this is a pretty fair and balanced view of what happened, Mel had maxed out on what he could afford to lose (annually) from his own personal wealth.  Where I take issue with Mel is:

Appointing too many managers and sacking them far too quickly, wasting £10Ms doing so.

Sanctioning the overpayment of players fees and wages, weakening and not strengthening our team and running up huge debts as a result.

Not standing up to managers and insisting they blood the youth players, we've been forced to do it now and guess what?  They are producing the goods.  

Selling the stadium to balance the books as he had massively beached FFP - That in my view was his most reckless act, spending to the extent we no longer own the ground and which could ultimately lead to our liquidation.

Why not do what many clubs has previously done, have a right go for 2 seasons and then sell you top players in year 3 to balance the books to stay within FFP P&S rules?  He's been so irresponsible its beyond belief.

Running up debts with HMRC and MSD is unforgiveable he said he would fund the club until he found a buyer and he lied as he's walked off leaving £60M+ of physical debt and we have no stadium.....  It couldn't be much worse TBH...  The only reason he couldn't find a buyer was his reckless running of the club with our wage bill at one point at 161% of total income, meaning we were losing so much nobody was interested in buying the club as it was losing Millions every year.   

If you look at all of the above decisions, if he had of run his other businesses in the same fashion, he would be a pauper.  

His attempts at making a sale have been amateurish and best, the Fake Sheikh, why didn't he do his due diligence over the Newcastle failure and as for Alonso really?  I think we could all tell he was a fantasist within a few twitter posts, who the ducking hell is advising Mel with these sales?  Alonso I think was the final act of desperation, but its shown just how bad Mel's judgement really is.  Mel is still worth a lot of money, he's been lucky to get into Dating Sites and King (Candy Crush) at the right time and profited well.   

Even those that subscribe to its not his fault and possibly blame the CFO (SP), surely Mel should have been asking why DCFC were moving assets around forming and closing so many companies.  Alarm bells would of been ringing.

In summary, Mel's tenure off the pitch can only be described as a complete and unmitigated disaster, with exception of investment into the Academy, which I thank him for, sadly he did not have the balls to make the managers use the young talent that Wassell and Co were producing.

The CEO is ultimately responsible and his tenure has been an unmitigated disaster

Mel - 3/10 see me!!!!! 

 

 

Edited December 31, 2021 by RAM1966

[TigerTedd]

9 hours ago, AndyinLiverpool said:

What makes you think he's not stupid?

It depresses me that stupid people can get so rich.

[TigerTedd]

Ive realised something. Putting us into administration at the start of the season, was Mel’s last attempt at circumventing the rules and trying to be clever. And, true to firm, it has back fired on him again.

if you get to the end of the season, adrift in the relegation zone, you can’t just go into admin then and take your 12pt deduction when it doesn’t matter. It gets taken off you next season instead.

so what he’s done is said, ‘well last season we just barely survived. This season we’re under an embargo, and we’re likely to have some sort of points deduction. So relegation is inevitable. So now is the perfect opportunity to go into admin and take the points deduction this season, so it doesn’t effect next season’.

If we had to go into admin, and the choice is between now and next season, now probably would be the most logical time to do it. (The question being, did we really have to go into admin? Could he have propped us io for another season til we got past all this EFL ********? No other championship club has had to go into admin despite the pandemic. Was that a purely selfish decision, or was their some twisted logic that going into admin now was the best long term solution for the club?) - but let’s give him the benefit of the doubt and say that we’d got to a point where admin was the last inevitable resort to get him and us out of the mess he’d created.

little did he know, that we’re actually putting on a fantastic show of spirit, and if we only had to deal with the 9pt deficit, we’d already be as good as out of the relegation zone, and planning next season in the championship.

i don’t think he’s done anything to purposefully ruin the club, I don’t think he’s vindictive, or that he’s the route of all evil. I just think he’s been a bit naive, a bit unlucky, a bit reckless, a bit cocky, and a bit stupid. And a combination of all those things, is a recipe for disaster.

 

[PistoldPete]

13 hours ago, RoyMac5 said:

Not a non-issue. It's indicative of the way the clubs finances were run!

I think the initial non payment was due to the club being in advanced stages of being sold, the buyer who had agreed to take over  pulled out at the last minute in January 2020. Let's hope that history doesnt repeat itself in January 2022.

[jimtastic56]

16 hours ago, David said:

When Mel went public with his intentions to sell, I made a suggestion, write an autobiography when this is all over, and I hope he does once the dust settles.

What happened, what was the tipping point that saw him pull the plug, how did we manage to rack up this huge debt to HMRC when Fawaz down the A52 was facing winding up orders every couple of months.

Whilst ultimately his decision cost jobs, left behind a lot of debt to local businesses, which I am a creditor myself, leaving the existence of this club in jeopardy, I can’t sit here today and lay all the blame at his door, of course he must accept his part in this, not suggesting for a second he completely blameless.

Being a long time supporter of Mel, I have largely avoided discussions around him as there are still questions that I feel need answering, more clarity of what went on, closure. It would be easy to sit here and call him all the names under the sun, but I feel like I owe him the opportunity to explain, I hope he does find a way as his final Radio Derby interview didn’t really explain anything we didn’t already know, no gaps in the timeline were filled, and it’s those gaps which have left so many questions.

Do not think I am here to defend Mel, only Mel can defend himself, I have no intention of getting into drawn out debates as it will only cause more anger and frustration when right now we should be focussing on the future of this club.

You can drag up posts from the past that I and others made, but they were made with the information that we had at the time, others that raised concerns, had their doubts whilst hurt may feel smug with “I told you so”, which is their choice. I have made my enemies just from running this platform, sure there’s a few out there finger pointing.

However Mel came in, spent money, created excitement and dared us to dream which is exactly what football fans want, we had no idea it was ever to be a poo or literally bust, we were led to believe that we were on the line, pushing it at times which many clubs do, but that line was dragged out of reach when the EFL decided to review our accounts over previous seasons, accounts which they signed off.

I still to this day believe that EFL, Boro and Wycombe must also take some responsibility in all this. I also don’t think we can just ignore the impact that Covid has had, both financially and personally. Mel did not have a crystal ball, for all this to come at a time when trying to sell the club placed a fuckload of barriers in the way.

Whilst you can argue you shouldn’t live life on the edge, be prepared for the worst, I have been around 40 years and this is the first global pandemic which has changed life as we know it and seen sporting events played behind closed doors. Over the next 12 months I’m sure we will see others start to show the impact that alone has had without the EFL on their backs.

His own health issues which remain private and may not have played no part in his decision, but many things happen in life that can make you question your own mortality, did his, was his primary concern his family where the outside abuse questioned his financial support? I honestly don’t know and not trying to manufacture excuses here, losing close friends, illness, it can and does make you question where you are yourself in life.

I don’t know if we will ever see a book, if some already feel they have closure and wouldn’t be interested or believe a word he says, I for one believe it would give closure those that supported him during his tenure and feel hurt with how the club has been left, all the memories which should have been left have now been tarnished, including the one at Elland Road.

Life does go on though, I'm not going to spend another day questioning why as another mental drain that I have no desire to entertain.

Interesting to find out DCFC we’re running up massive debts to HMRC in 2014-16. (When Fawaz was in charge). Rules out the covid excuse.