The real smart move Mel Morris played was signing up to the gasroom a few years back as @aloysius and posting his little propaganda posts trying to sew discontent.
Mel Morris is a man whom when presented with a shovel likes to keep on digging.
99.9% of what is coming out is vapour, it’ll be decided on a legal basis.
His case is weak, watch the BBC Radio Derby interview, if you can find it, it’s been pulled,.
I wonder why and by whom?
When Mr Morris, the alleged perpetrator, feels the court of public opinion represents his best chance of leverage, not forgetting his ownership of the stadium, it does not speak well about the validity of his legal case.
@drcongo said:
The real smart move Mel Morris played was signing up to the gasroom a few years back as @aloysius and posting his little propaganda posts trying to sew discontent.
I now imagine @aloysius sitting with his needle and thread patiently "sewing" the holes in his socks!
@drcongo said:
The real smart move Mel Morris played was signing up to the gasroom a few years back as @aloysius and posting his little propaganda posts trying to sew discontent.
I think it’s backfired there’s nothing that brings us together more than someone posting shite like well done Mel Morris
The timing shows it’s just grandstanding. Social media has derby fans now saying what a hero he is. Fucking basket case of a club.
I’m no lawyer but I can’t see for a second how you can suddenly split the person from the company regarding the crimes of one. Just bizarre.
For the idiots among us (me), would our claim be less likely to succeed in the High Court? Is there a higher burden of proof needed?
I can only assume that is why Morris is doing this. Because he could just equally easily guarantee to pay any settlement from the current claim vs Derby County (couldn't he?), thus releasing a new buyer of the liability.
Four pages of deflection from the matters in hand, which will only serve to drag the sh1tshow on further.
The only point relevant to us is the invitation to pursue MM personally. However, If MM is correct and WWFC have only threatened to make a claim, then why have the Administrators persistently said that our claim is holding up the process? If we have not made a claim then there is nothing for the Administrators to be dealing with. It also would not have been possible for the Administrators to have received legal advice regarding the validity of a claim that has not yet been made.
Mel Morris has surfaced and said he's willing to front up to the two claims in the high court.....
No idea if that's viable even if it should be (as it was Derby who took our place in the league, not MM himself), but things are definitely going to start getting interesting now.
Brilliant move by Mel Morris. Let's see how much Rob Couhig believes he really has a case. If he goes to High Court and loses that will cost him or Wycombe serious money. Does Mr Couhig really want to take that risk on such a spurious case? Something tells me he won't.
Very good on Mel Morris for pushing this back to Rob Couhig. We don't have a culture of suing for every perceived mislight in this country and we shouldn't want to go down that route. All it does is enrich small-town lawyers at everyone else's expense.
Do you just get off making really bizarre totally against the grain posts?
There was a post somewhere on this thread in the last day or so bemoaning Derby fans' lack of critical thinking. I did find that that a little ironic. I'm fully happy to accept that I'm against the grain on this one compared to the sentiment of those posting on the board. Let's see if I'm against the grain of the legal profession though if Rob Couhig is foolhardy enough to pursue this action through the courts. Whatever I think of our chairman I certainly don't think he's a fool. Which is why I'm pleased Mel M has called his bluff. I'm hoping Rob will now do as I advised a few pages back - withdraw gracefully and turn his guns on the EFL... Then we might actually get some good from all of this.
The noise that is coming from all sides now relative to the calm silence from the club suggests that behind the scenes Rob is winning the argument handsomely.
Mel Morris has surfaced and said he's willing to front up to the two claims in the high court.....
No idea if that's viable even if it should be (as it was Derby who took our place in the league, not MM himself), but things are definitely going to start getting interesting now.
Brilliant move by Mel Morris. Let's see how much Rob Couhig believes he really has a case. If he goes to High Court and loses that will cost him or Wycombe serious money. Does Mr Couhig really want to take that risk on such a spurious case? Something tells me he won't.
Very good on Mel Morris for pushing this back to Rob Couhig. We don't have a culture of suing for every perceived mislight in this country and we shouldn't want to go down that route. All it does is enrich small-town lawyers at everyone else's expense.
Do you just get off making really bizarre totally against the grain posts?
There was a post somewhere on this thread in the last day or so bemoaning Derby fans' lack of critical thinking. I did find that that a little ironic. I'm fully happy to accept that I'm against the grain on this one compared to the sentiment of those posting on the board. Let's see if I'm against the grain of the legal profession though if Rob Couhig is foolhardy enough to pursue this action through the courts. Whatever I think of our chairman I certainly don't think he's a fool. Which is why I'm pleased Mel M has called his bluff. I'm hoping Rob will now do as I advised a few pages back - withdraw gracefully and turn his guns on the EFL... Then we might actually get some good from all of this.
I just do not look forward to your posts about our chairman when he's finished with our project.
As it couldn't really have gone much better so far. Crap burgers aside.
Eventhough I know there are differing views on the merits of Rob's plan but some of the posts we get on here taking any opportunity to attack our manager, players or owners with such glee is still a surprise to me.
There is no way a football club can take an individual to court for preventing their survival in the league. Morris knows this which is why he is 'selflessly' offering it
@aloysius - Even if you're right (which I think is 50/50) and Boro/Wycombe's claims will not be successful, why shouldn't RC or Gibson be able to find that out through the proper route? Why do they have to take pity on Derby, take Mel Morris' word that he did nothing wrong, and withdraw their right to claim and have it decided via the right channels?
The wider picture is that there are two bad options here and it looks likely one of these will happen:
1) Derby dodge all their debts, screw HMRC and get sold to an opportunistic buyer at a bargain rate. This incentivises reckless spending by EFL clubs but spares Derby.
2) Derby go bust. This discourages clubs from seeking to use the insolvency rules to avoid debts to HMRC etc but sacrifices Derby.
Then one good outcome:
3) Derby find a buyer who can and will pay off all their debts and take the Wycombe and Boro claims to their conclusion - either winning the argument in arbitration/mediation (as per EFL rules) or paying damages to the clubs who lost out due to Derby's breach of P&S.
You seem to think RC, who is competing financially with all the other clubs with his own money, should give up what he thinks is a legitimate claim just because Derby don't have time to argue it through the proper channels. That's ludicrous. Last year Derby delayed and delayed the submission of their accounts to weasel their way to this year's Championship money, directly taking it from us. Now they don't like it when other clubs who lost out are taking their time about claiming against that dishonest practice. Their own tactics are coming back to haunt them.
What SHOULD have happened is Derby should have submitted their accounts straight away when the amortisation issue was settled in the EFL's favour and before that Mel Morris SHOULD never have ripped the stadium from the club (which he did partly to push the boundaries of the EFL's P&S rules) leaving nothing for a prospective buyer to buy other than a tangle of debt.
Sadly this is a classic case of grandstanding bullshit from Morris, he knows that under English Law the actions of corporate officers are considered to be the actions of the company; in this case The Derby County Football Club Ltd co no 00049139, unless those actions are a breach of criminal law (even then there may be joint liability...) and as such it is highly doubtful that there is a cause of action against Morris.
Seriously if he wants to be the hero, give Pride Park back to DAFC, pay off all non football creditors in full & indemnify the new owners against the claims of MFC & WWFC, otherwise just STFU
@aloysius - on the specific merit of the RC/Gibson claims. I am not a lawyer but here are some ideas why the claims might not be as hopeless as you have decided.
Gibson - I think people are getting bogged down in the size of Boro's claim which has been reported as high as £65m. It must be difficult to quantify their loss because they just 'lost the chance' of going up through the playoffs. However, there could be legal mechanisms for dealing with this - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_of_chance_in_English_law - so the Boro claim is not as absurd as it looks, the claim might be actionable, it just might not be worth anywhere near as much as reported. Derby were pinching players from under Boro's nose in the transfer market at the time so the direct relationship between Derby's overspend and Boro's sporting shortcomings is relatively easy to show.
RC - The issue here is that the EFL seemingly set the date for Derby's accounts submission post-amortisation so Derby will say they followed EFL rules. However, Mel Morris reportedly admitted on radio (amazing) to delaying this for the purpose of staying in the Champ. What if there's something in the EFL's articles that says clubs must co-operate as soon as reasonably possible with EFL requests and it has since come to light that Derby deliberately delayed submitting accounts to gain an extension? What if RC thinks that Mel Morris' interview + common sense (accounts must have been ready ages before and adjusting for the amortisation takes 5 mins) means that a neutral observer would think Derby did deliberately avoid disclosing accounts to the EFL at a reasonable speed and this was in breach of EFL rules causing a loss to another member club. £6m to Wycombe.
So, these claims are IMO arguable both ways and we stand to gain £6m from a mystery 'guardian angel' buyer who goes for scenario 3 in my last post. Or we could back down and let the new buyer waltz in to scenario 1. I support Couhig on his approach 100% and today, just like yesterday, Mel Morris is the real root of all of Derby's problems.
The claim is against DCFC who benefited from the rule breaking, not against Mel Morris who is ostensibly no longer involved with the club. DCFC is now run by the Administrators purely for the benefit of the creditors.
If Mel Morris truly wishes to help then he will put the stadium into any DCFC deal.
Based on the details provided to and advice received from legal counsel WWFC decided that there was a case to answer and that on the balance of probabilities that it was worth pursuing.
Clearly as we are not party to the information or advice it is very difficult for us to do anything other than support the actions of someone who so far in his tenure has proven to be a good custodian of our club and to have the clubs best interests at heart.
Chris Kirchner, who was in the running to buy Derby but pulled out because he felt Mel Morris was taking the piss, has been tweeting tonight correcting Derby fans on some of their wayward ideas about what's going on there. here's a seleciton:
Derby fan - 'were you put off by the [Boro/Wyc] claims?' Kirchner - 'No'.
Confirming Mel Morris is not prepared to take a hit on the stadium and is still hoping to rent it out to Derby to pay off the debt he incurred funding its purchase which reduced the club's 'on-paper' losses.
Suggesting that he thinks the issue with the administrators is that they are working too closely with Mel Morris, specifically by retaining his right hand man (Stephen Pearce) as CEO at the club. Does seem odd that Pearce is still there when the administrators are supposed to be looking out for the creditors, not Morris.
It really is a shit storm. I've almost given up trying to reason with supporters of DCFC, as they are adamant that it is Borough & WWFC that are the impediments to any takeover. As for the latest statement from MM, well that's just a bit of PR & posturing from MM. Ain't never going to happen as far as I can tell as DCFC were the ones benefitting from the cheating, so it makes sense to me that DCFC are the ones we have lodged a claim against. Ah well, let's wait until the 1st March to see how far the EFL can kick the can down the road.
One of his responses confirmed that the administrators are to blame for not having a preferred bidder in place and not EFL / Boro / Wycombe. He said he had a plan in place to fight the two claims at a cost of ~$1m.
He said the question that nobody seems to ask is why one of MM’s men (Stephen Pearce?) is still involved with the club at a senior level.
I like the way the whole thing plays out in press releases and public statements like a britpop spat. Looking forward to Rooney slagging off Gaz in the NME before some fisticuffs in a festival beer tent.
If Kirchner is correct that Derby have not been paying their tax or insurance for "years", then surely the Government should be investigating HMRC allowing the debt to accrue for so long before taking serious action.
Reading some of Kirchner's tweets.... From my completely unqualified viewpoint the whole of administration has been a waste of time, Derby are a walking carcass, and every hour wasted on administrators fees / player wages is a disgrace to the taxpayer and every creditor. They should have simply sold every player and liquidated in January.... The required asking price is twice as high as Sunderland, v and they have no assets at all
@mooneyman said:
If Kirchner is correct that Derby have not been paying their tax or insurance for "years", then surely the Government should be investigating HMRC allowing the debt to accrue for so long before taking serious action.
Morris should certainly have his day in court, he should be charged with a range of offences in his handling of this. What he can't be allowed to do is dictate where, when and how in a transparent way to get himself the easiest ride and avoid Derby further points deductions.
In his proposed scenario Derby still need to find a bidder willing to pay HMRC and other creditors and to fund them in the future. Then he'd head off to the high court or settle the debt and sit tight for a year or two before selling the stadium. You just know that if we won a case against him he'd counter sue, appeal, drag out payment etc, and he's laughing anyway because Derby would be paying the money anyway in rent
Heartening to read that, with one notable exception, posters see this latest development for what it is. Rob Couhig is a very talented and successful lawyer so I prefer to back his judgment rather than that of a layman who clearly has an axe to grind against our owner.
Comments
The real smart move Mel Morris played was signing up to the gasroom a few years back as @aloysius and posting his little propaganda posts trying to sew discontent.
Mel Morris is a man whom when presented with a shovel likes to keep on digging.
99.9% of what is coming out is vapour, it’ll be decided on a legal basis.
His case is weak, watch the BBC Radio Derby interview, if you can find it, it’s been pulled,.
I wonder why and by whom?
When Mr Morris, the alleged perpetrator, feels the court of public opinion represents his best chance of leverage, not forgetting his ownership of the stadium, it does not speak well about the validity of his legal case.
Hence the tiresome showboating.
I now imagine @aloysius sitting with his needle and thread patiently "sewing" the holes in his socks!
I think it’s backfired there’s nothing that brings us together more than someone posting shite like well done Mel Morris
The timing shows it’s just grandstanding. Social media has derby fans now saying what a hero he is. Fucking basket case of a club.
I’m no lawyer but I can’t see for a second how you can suddenly split the person from the company regarding the crimes of one. Just bizarre.
For the idiots among us (me), would our claim be less likely to succeed in the High Court? Is there a higher burden of proof needed?
I can only assume that is why Morris is doing this. Because he could just equally easily guarantee to pay any settlement from the current claim vs Derby County (couldn't he?), thus releasing a new buyer of the liability.
I was curious, so I looked this up... Mel Morris made his fortune from CANDY CRUSH?
Four pages of deflection from the matters in hand, which will only serve to drag the sh1tshow on further.
The only point relevant to us is the invitation to pursue MM personally. However, If MM is correct and WWFC have only threatened to make a claim, then why have the Administrators persistently said that our claim is holding up the process? If we have not made a claim then there is nothing for the Administrators to be dealing with. It also would not have been possible for the Administrators to have received legal advice regarding the validity of a claim that has not yet been made.
There was a post somewhere on this thread in the last day or so bemoaning Derby fans' lack of critical thinking. I did find that that a little ironic. I'm fully happy to accept that I'm against the grain on this one compared to the sentiment of those posting on the board. Let's see if I'm against the grain of the legal profession though if Rob Couhig is foolhardy enough to pursue this action through the courts. Whatever I think of our chairman I certainly don't think he's a fool. Which is why I'm pleased Mel M has called his bluff. I'm hoping Rob will now do as I advised a few pages back - withdraw gracefully and turn his guns on the EFL... Then we might actually get some good from all of this.
The noise that is coming from all sides now relative to the calm silence from the club suggests that behind the scenes Rob is winning the argument handsomely.
I just do not look forward to your posts about our chairman when he's finished with our project.
As it couldn't really have gone much better so far. Crap burgers aside.
Eventhough I know there are differing views on the merits of Rob's plan but some of the posts we get on here taking any opportunity to attack our manager, players or owners with such glee is still a surprise to me.
There is no way a football club can take an individual to court for preventing their survival in the league. Morris knows this which is why he is 'selflessly' offering it
@aloysius - Even if you're right (which I think is 50/50) and Boro/Wycombe's claims will not be successful, why shouldn't RC or Gibson be able to find that out through the proper route? Why do they have to take pity on Derby, take Mel Morris' word that he did nothing wrong, and withdraw their right to claim and have it decided via the right channels?
The wider picture is that there are two bad options here and it looks likely one of these will happen:
1) Derby dodge all their debts, screw HMRC and get sold to an opportunistic buyer at a bargain rate. This incentivises reckless spending by EFL clubs but spares Derby.
2) Derby go bust. This discourages clubs from seeking to use the insolvency rules to avoid debts to HMRC etc but sacrifices Derby.
Then one good outcome:
3) Derby find a buyer who can and will pay off all their debts and take the Wycombe and Boro claims to their conclusion - either winning the argument in arbitration/mediation (as per EFL rules) or paying damages to the clubs who lost out due to Derby's breach of P&S.
You seem to think RC, who is competing financially with all the other clubs with his own money, should give up what he thinks is a legitimate claim just because Derby don't have time to argue it through the proper channels. That's ludicrous. Last year Derby delayed and delayed the submission of their accounts to weasel their way to this year's Championship money, directly taking it from us. Now they don't like it when other clubs who lost out are taking their time about claiming against that dishonest practice. Their own tactics are coming back to haunt them.
What SHOULD have happened is Derby should have submitted their accounts straight away when the amortisation issue was settled in the EFL's favour and before that Mel Morris SHOULD never have ripped the stadium from the club (which he did partly to push the boundaries of the EFL's P&S rules) leaving nothing for a prospective buyer to buy other than a tangle of debt.
Sadly this is a classic case of grandstanding bullshit from Morris, he knows that under English Law the actions of corporate officers are considered to be the actions of the company; in this case The Derby County Football Club Ltd co no 00049139, unless those actions are a breach of criminal law (even then there may be joint liability...) and as such it is highly doubtful that there is a cause of action against Morris.
Seriously if he wants to be the hero, give Pride Park back to DAFC, pay off all non football creditors in full & indemnify the new owners against the claims of MFC & WWFC, otherwise just STFU
Maybe we should take him to the high court and Derby to arbitration
@aloysius - on the specific merit of the RC/Gibson claims. I am not a lawyer but here are some ideas why the claims might not be as hopeless as you have decided.
Gibson - I think people are getting bogged down in the size of Boro's claim which has been reported as high as £65m. It must be difficult to quantify their loss because they just 'lost the chance' of going up through the playoffs. However, there could be legal mechanisms for dealing with this - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_of_chance_in_English_law - so the Boro claim is not as absurd as it looks, the claim might be actionable, it just might not be worth anywhere near as much as reported. Derby were pinching players from under Boro's nose in the transfer market at the time so the direct relationship between Derby's overspend and Boro's sporting shortcomings is relatively easy to show.
RC - The issue here is that the EFL seemingly set the date for Derby's accounts submission post-amortisation so Derby will say they followed EFL rules. However, Mel Morris reportedly admitted on radio (amazing) to delaying this for the purpose of staying in the Champ. What if there's something in the EFL's articles that says clubs must co-operate as soon as reasonably possible with EFL requests and it has since come to light that Derby deliberately delayed submitting accounts to gain an extension? What if RC thinks that Mel Morris' interview + common sense (accounts must have been ready ages before and adjusting for the amortisation takes 5 mins) means that a neutral observer would think Derby did deliberately avoid disclosing accounts to the EFL at a reasonable speed and this was in breach of EFL rules causing a loss to another member club. £6m to Wycombe.
So, these claims are IMO arguable both ways and we stand to gain £6m from a mystery 'guardian angel' buyer who goes for scenario 3 in my last post. Or we could back down and let the new buyer waltz in to scenario 1. I support Couhig on his approach 100% and today, just like yesterday, Mel Morris is the real root of all of Derby's problems.
The claim is against DCFC who benefited from the rule breaking, not against Mel Morris who is ostensibly no longer involved with the club. DCFC is now run by the Administrators purely for the benefit of the creditors.
If Mel Morris truly wishes to help then he will put the stadium into any DCFC deal.
Based on the details provided to and advice received from legal counsel WWFC decided that there was a case to answer and that on the balance of probabilities that it was worth pursuing.
Clearly as we are not party to the information or advice it is very difficult for us to do anything other than support the actions of someone who so far in his tenure has proven to be a good custodian of our club and to have the clubs best interests at heart.
Chris Kirchner, who was in the running to buy Derby but pulled out because he felt Mel Morris was taking the piss, has been tweeting tonight correcting Derby fans on some of their wayward ideas about what's going on there. here's a seleciton:
Derby fan - 'were you put off by the [Boro/Wyc] claims?' Kirchner - 'No'.
Claiming that the tax bill is £80m!
Kirchner - '[Morris] didn't pay insurance or payroll tax for years'
Confirming Mel Morris is not prepared to take a hit on the stadium and is still hoping to rent it out to Derby to pay off the debt he incurred funding its purchase which reduced the club's 'on-paper' losses.
Suggesting that he thinks the issue with the administrators is that they are working too closely with Mel Morris, specifically by retaining his right hand man (Stephen Pearce) as CEO at the club. Does seem odd that Pearce is still there when the administrators are supposed to be looking out for the creditors, not Morris.
It really is a shit storm. I've almost given up trying to reason with supporters of DCFC, as they are adamant that it is Borough & WWFC that are the impediments to any takeover. As for the latest statement from MM, well that's just a bit of PR & posturing from MM. Ain't never going to happen as far as I can tell as DCFC were the ones benefitting from the cheating, so it makes sense to me that DCFC are the ones we have lodged a claim against. Ah well, let's wait until the 1st March to see how far the EFL can kick the can down the road.
Kirchner (who they all loved three months ago) has certainly stirred it up last night.
They don’t like this about their new hero Mel either from.
One of his responses confirmed that the administrators are to blame for not having a preferred bidder in place and not EFL / Boro / Wycombe. He said he had a plan in place to fight the two claims at a cost of ~$1m.
He said the question that nobody seems to ask is why one of MM’s men (Stephen Pearce?) is still involved with the club at a senior level.
I like the way the whole thing plays out in press releases and public statements like a britpop spat. Looking forward to Rooney slagging off Gaz in the NME before some fisticuffs in a festival beer tent.
If Kirchner is correct that Derby have not been paying their tax or insurance for "years", then surely the Government should be investigating HMRC allowing the debt to accrue for so long before taking serious action.
Reading some of Kirchner's tweets.... From my completely unqualified viewpoint the whole of administration has been a waste of time, Derby are a walking carcass, and every hour wasted on administrators fees / player wages is a disgrace to the taxpayer and every creditor. They should have simply sold every player and liquidated in January.... The required asking price is twice as high as Sunderland, v and they have no assets at all
Morris should certainly have his day in court, he should be charged with a range of offences in his handling of this. What he can't be allowed to do is dictate where, when and how in a transparent way to get himself the easiest ride and avoid Derby further points deductions.
In his proposed scenario Derby still need to find a bidder willing to pay HMRC and other creditors and to fund them in the future. Then he'd head off to the high court or settle the debt and sit tight for a year or two before selling the stadium. You just know that if we won a case against him he'd counter sue, appeal, drag out payment etc, and he's laughing anyway because Derby would be paying the money anyway in rent
Lol
Heartening to read that, with one notable exception, posters see this latest development for what it is. Rob Couhig is a very talented and successful lawyer so I prefer to back his judgment rather than that of a layman who clearly has an axe to grind against our owner.
Sounds like some crypto thing (I have no idea about terminology when it comes to that bollocks) now wants to buy them?