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Derby County FFP and the EFL

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  • His technique is so well honed, as a lawyer... Every time he said "and i could be wrong about that", you knew that he knew he was 100% correct.

  • @LeedsBlue said:
    His technique is so well honed, as a lawyer... Every time he said "and i could be wrong about that", you knew that he knew he was 100% correct.

    Yeah, I had a discussion with someone that picked on that and his phrase “I think”. His take on it was he was making things up off the top of my head.

    My thought on it is his thinking is based on legal argument and precedent.

  • Did you also note that rather than alleging that Derby "cheated" (which is what Middlesbrough's statement mentioned in the first paragraph) he carefully used the term "gained the system". I thought it curious at the time, but it saved calling them cheats.

  • Gibson letter, EFL letter and Rob's interview (whatever you think about the claims) seem quite clear and straight-forward to me...even despite the inevitable one-eyed emotional aspects, I cannot see how they can believe that even if both clubs dropped their claims all would be hunky dory with massive debts and the man who ran up those debts still owning your ground. But then a lot of fans seem to struggle to accept we did not get a free pass to promotion via PPG or that we convince every official to give us every decision.

  • Martin Samuel missed the obvious Daily Mail headline for his support of County: ‘Hurrah For The Black Shorts’*

    • if you know that papers despicable historic track record
  • @ValleyWanderer said:

    @NiceCarrots said:
    I know I'm very, very late for the party but I cannot stress enough how vital it is to listen to the BBC Radio Derby interview, fascinating to hear Mr. Couhig's point of view.

    Having listened to the interview, I agree that it's fascinating and I find myself even more firmly behind RC and his principals. Do you have a perspective on this @NiceCarrots?

    I’ve come even later to this stage of the discussion, having switched on the Gasroom about 20 minutes ago to the daunting sight of “132 new messages” covering four pages. I chose to read just the last one - page 65 ! I too listened (very late last night) to the BBC Radio Derby interview with Rob Couhig. A manipulatory minefield to get to it for this IT ignoramus and I somehow contrived to set up the BBC Sound App but well worth the effort.

    Like @ValleyWanderer, I am very much behind Mr Couhig but I’d be rather wary of getting behind his Principals !!
    Time will tell whether “our” claim will hold water. To my untutored mind, the justification for it feels even stronger after listening to the interview but the potential reputational damage now being talked about is not something that had previously crossed my mind and, to me, it doesn’t seem like a factor we should be unduly concerned about.

    In skipping pages on here, I may have missed discussion about whether Derby County Football Club or the EFL should be the target of our claim. If that aspect was discussed during the interview, perhaps someone could put me straight. I do tend to have involuntary cat-naps in the early hours!

  • @HolmerBlue said:
    I'm not standing up for @aloysius but I did read yesterday that apparently Derby fans have been phoning up Middlesbrough ticket office sending death threats and trying to buy tickets so they can get into the ground to cause trouble

    Wonder if they know our head of ticketing Ben is a Derby fan? Maybe this is the time to be slow picking up at AP?

  • @TheDancingYak said:
    https://www.mfc.co.uk/news/an-open-letter-from-steve-gibson-to-the-joint-administrators-of-derby-county-fc

    Open letter to derbys admin from Gibson.

    In the style of Harry hill, there’s only one way to solve this……FIGHT!

    Touch of the Kevin Nolans in question 2.

  • Just listened to the piece about Derby and their troubles on BBC Radio 1 (I'm down with the kids, especially when the latest hit parade is announced Friday).
    Very balanced piece. Wycombe and Middlesborough taking legal action. Administration came out of the blue. It's bad for people's mental health. One guy doesn't how he will go on with his team. They must have edited out the bit where Derby's reckless spending and systematic cheating got them to where they are today. Good old BBC balance.

    And if you want to avoid The Daily Mail* even further I would not recommend morbidly obese professional cretin Martin Samuel's piece today.

    *no I f'ing didn't. It was given to me.

  • @perfidious_albion said:

    @HolmerBlue said:
    I'm not standing up for @aloysius but I did read yesterday that apparently Derby fans have been phoning up Middlesbrough ticket office sending death threats and trying to buy tickets so they can get into the ground to cause trouble

    Wonder if they know our head of ticketing Ben is a Derby fan? Maybe this is the time to be slow picking up at AP?

    Obviously we didn't carry out "due diligence" before appointing him!!

  • @mooneyman said:

    @perfidious_albion said:

    @HolmerBlue said:
    I'm not standing up for @aloysius but I did read yesterday that apparently Derby fans have been phoning up Middlesbrough ticket office sending death threats and trying to buy tickets so they can get into the ground to cause trouble

    Wonder if they know our head of ticketing Ben is a Derby fan? Maybe this is the time to be slow picking up at AP?

    Obviously we didn't carry out "due diligence" before appointing him!!

    He’s a lovely lad, hard working and a real asset to the club. Not his fault that accident of birth.

  • Don’t forget Derby received the £6m plus for being in the Championship this season that Wycombe would have received had we stayed up. The EFL don’t have that money it has already gone to Derby so a claim against Derby and their administrators would seem more logical than a claim against the EFL?

    There could be a claim against the EFL that procedures were not followed properly in allowing Derby to delay resubmitting their amended accounts. The ones that when resubmitted led to a points deduction. And that possible claim will likely concern the EFL, unless they feel that they have a watertight defence as to why they allowed Derby to file so late i.e. after the season had already started.

  • Hi all, Raminpeace by name and nature. Good to see you doing so well this season. Now, the elephant in the room. If I'm being honest, we should have had the FFP 9 point deduction last season and gone down. The facts are we didn't get it last season. IMO, that is down to the EFL. Two charges that they took forever to launch, almost as long to hear, 3 months to give the verdict of not guilty on both counts. They then took to the last possible day to appeal on the accounting amortisation charge. The appeal date took months to be decided. More months waiting on the verdict. They had appealed on 3 counts. Two were rejected. The 3rd one scraped through on a technicality, namely, that part of the legal under UK Law amortisation method used "might have been explained better". That led to a 100K fine and instructions to resubmit 3 years accounts using the EFL preferred amortisation method. Under UK Accounting Law FRS102, the one we had used was perfectly legal. The resubmitted accounts saw us exceed FFP limits and we got another 9 points deducted to add to the 12 for going into Administration. -21 and still not bottom. Not bad. So, the reason we didn't go down last season was more the EFL than us. Your current owner should, IMO, be chasing the EFL, not DCFC. On that point, I'd like to see if any of you can answer this riddle. Last season Reading exceeded FFP. They took 3 points off you. 3 points that would have seen you finish above DCFC. Why isn't the club suing Reading as well? If the FFP issues affected points gained last season you ought to be suing Reading as well as us, shouldn't you? I look forward to your thoughts.

  • Hi @Raminpeace thanks for coming on. I think you'll find no arguments that the EFL have questions to answer on here. And you'll find a range of opinions about Rob's decision. For me, knowing how tribal we all can be, I think some Rams fans are being distracted from the Administrator's incompetence and the role of Mel in all of this downplayed, by the Boro/Wycombe thing being overplayed. No-one on here or at the club would want to see Derby out of business (and I am originally from Nottingham!) and I am sure if the administrators did what they are being (well) paid for...a resolution could easily be reached for nowhere near the sums being demanded. (by us anyway...no idea what Gibson would settle for.) As for Reading, perhaps they are next on Rob's list... :smile:

  • Welcome @Raminpeace. I am sure I am not the only one that feels for you. We teetered a few years ago and had it not been for Colin Daniels we would probably be no more.
    100% agree about Reading and The EFL. The handling of the re-submission of your accounts was pathetic, even more so against a background of the release of the interchangeable fixtures. Either your owners played further games or the EFL lost their bottle and the result ****ed you. If medicine had been taken back then I would suggest you would be challenging League 1 to get back to the Championship. MM chose a death by 1000 cuts.
    Why no one (I include Middlesborough) has not put a challenge into the EFL is a mystery. Is there something to stop clubs doing so?

    Do you agree (grudgingly) that MM stating that they deliberated acted to stay up at the expense of Wycombe gives us grounds for grievance? I am also sure you agree that your administrators do not seem to be truthful / competent*? They have been making some statements publicly that can easily be disproved. Using Wycombe and 'boro as scapegoats is a great smokescreen when no other progress appears to be made.

    Wish you well. Hope you get a buyer. Hope the appropriate amount of reflection is made. Not a hairshirt, just reflection.

    *delete as applicable

  • edited January 2022

    The difference between Reading and Derby is, if you'd got the penalty when you should have, it's just a fact that you would have gone down not us when you look at the final table. Reading having a weaker team wouldn't have guaranteed we'd have beaten them.

    The EFL are also culpable, but we're not going to effectively sue ourselves and 70 other innocent clubs (which is what we'd be doing by suing the EFL), when we can sue the club that actually cheated us out of our league place and took the cash that went with it from us.

    I hope you survive, but if you go to the wall it won't be our fault, it will be Mel Morris', and your fan base were loving it at the time- and plenty still have their head in the sand prioritising championship survival over the survival of the club. It's madness you're not selling players and cutting your wage bill down.

    We went through our own financial turmoil and it cost us most of our senior players, our entire reserve squad ,our academy system and almost our league place. We were having to play our manager and goalkeeper coach in games. The club was stripped back to its bare bones to survive- the fans took it over, and that means we didn't rob the tax payer and local business of cash. Why aren't you having to do this? If you need cash to get to the end of the season surely selling off multi million pound players would be a good place to start

  • edited January 2022

    @Raminpeace I think the reason is Derby gained, and are still gaining money because they stayed up. We are all EFL members, they aren't perfect but they were being sued and countersued by you throughout the process, mostly in bad faith whilst cheating.
    I think most of us would happily move out of the way despite this to save you from going bust if we thought that it was a realistic outcome and if we didn't think it would lead to Mel getting that money. I have enormous sympathy for fans but note Derby still haven't cut their cloth as other clubs including ours have had to do. I also expect that once you come out of administration you'll be buying players we could never dream of affording and that shouldn't be out of money ourselves or HMRC have excused.
    Fair play for coming on here, lots of your fans are throwing abuse at Rob and us that won't help them gain any goodwill.
    I'd be more than happy for us to delay any claim until after you are safe and then taken any money (If awarded) very slowly.

  • @Raminpeace said:
    On that point, I'd like to see if any of you can answer this riddle. Last season Reading exceeded FFP. They took 3 points off you. 3 points that would have seen you finish above DCFC. Why isn't the club suing Reading as well? If the FFP issues affected points gained last season you ought to be suing Reading as well as us, shouldn't you? I look forward to your thoughts.

    @Username has clearly articulated the Reading difference and everything else I would add too, except I'd just like to point out that nobody is suing anyone here, all we've done is put in the claim for money owed. Derby have received that money, therefore the claim is against you, not the EFL who Derby have already cheated out of that money.

    I'd also agree with @TheAndyGrahamFanClub - the EFL are far from innocent in all this, they've seemingly mismanaged everything about it. But your real enemy here is Mel Morris who put you in the position in the first place, is currently withholding the ground so that you're a far less viable purchase, and appointed the administrators who are twiddling their thumbs and rinsing your petty cash.

  • What Wycombe had to offer any potential buyer was a relatively low level of debt, a board of directors who wanted the Dutch ( Stars in Their Eyes) but that fell through so they had to go cap in hand back to Mr. Couhig i.e. distressed seller and - importantly for overseas investors - easy access to international airports.

    Mr. Couhig is on record as stating he was re-assured by working under British law.

    Everyone here knows it all a tad iffy - Peter Ridsdale on the EFL Board, the mystery benefactors who kept a Trust-owned club's training ground, Celebrity Hong Kong hairdressers etc fronting up for other parties etc, it beggars belief that anyone, let alone someone representing our 25% stake, should cop flak for calling somebody out on it.

    As the extraordinary Dr. Congo wrote, the BBC interview is really worth listening to.

  • @Username said:
    We went through our own financial turmoil and it cost us most of our senior players, our entire reserve squad ,our academy system and almost our league place. We were having to play our manager and goalkeeper coach in games. The club was stripped back to its bare bones to survive- the fans took it over, and that means we didn't rob the tax payer and local business of cash. Why aren't you having to do this? If you need cash to get to the end of the season surely selling off multi million pound players would be a good place to start

    I don’t think this is appreciated by DCFC’s army of supporters (both real and the celebrity media ones) and is very well summarised here. Let’s face it, we spent years scratching around on the edge of oblivion and only survived thanks to lots of hard work from Trust directors and members, making difficult and unpopular decisions, selling players, not paying transfer fees for players, and benefiting from the work of a great manager (and assistants) who dealt with all that was thrown at them and did so much more than just keeping our heads above the water.

    I think that’s what rankles with me when I see all this ‘take a look at yourselves’ rubbish.

    We have, we did. How about you?

  • I'm willing to bet that Rooney isn't putting the nets up at the training ground because the club can't afford someone to set everything up.

  • @drcongo said:
    I'm willing to bet that Rooney isn't putting the nets up at the training ground because the club can't afford someone to set everything up.

    Or in fact buying the nets that he put up

  • edited January 2022

    An extremely impressive and totally accurate post, @Username and worthy of a much larger audience.

    And to think that the tw*t from the Daily Mail describes us as "entitled". It really is beyond parody.

  • Didn't really understand a lot of that, but who were the Known Criminals we swerved @NiceCarrots ? I missed that bit.

  • edited January 2022

    @Username said:

    We went through our own financial turmoil and it cost us most of our senior players, our entire reserve squad ,our academy system and almost our league place. We were having to play our manager and goalkeeper coach in games. The club was stripped back to its bare bones to survive- the fans took it over, and that means we didn't rob the tax payer and local business of cash. Why aren't you having to do this? If you need cash to get to the end of the season surely selling off multi million pound players would be a good place to start.

    Indeed. Well put @Username And we had three seasons of that before Rob didn't we? With only nine players or something pre-season and looking like a real disaster by the time he turned up?

  • @Username said:
    The difference between Reading and Derby is, if you'd got the penalty when you should have, it's just a fact that you would have gone down not us when you look at the final table. Reading having a weaker team wouldn't have guaranteed we'd have beaten them.

    The EFL are also culpable, but we're not going to effectively sue ourselves and 70 other innocent clubs (which is what we'd be doing by suing the EFL), when we can sue the club that actually cheated us out of our league place and took the cash that went with it from us.

    I hope you survive, but if you go to the wall it won't be our fault, it will be Mel Morris', and your fan base were loving it at the time- and plenty still have their head in the sand prioritising championship survival over the survival of the club. It's madness you're not selling players and cutting your wage bill down.

    We went through our own financial turmoil and it cost us most of our senior players, our entire reserve squad ,our academy system and almost our league place. We were having to play our manager and goalkeeper coach in games. The club was stripped back to its bare bones to survive- the fans took it over, and that means we didn't rob the tax payer and local business of cash. Why aren't you having to do this? If you need cash to get to the end of the season surely selling off multi million pound players would be a good place to start

    This ought to be pinned somewhere.

  • @Raminpeace Firstly, I like pretty much all other supporters very much hope Derby pull through this. This to me is far more important than our claim against Derby, however justified.

    As many have posted above, we absolutely do know what you're going through, as it's not long ago we were right on the brink and it's taken a quite extraordinary effort both on and off the field from fans, management and players to be where we are now. We also had an owner who was over spending and had plans way beyond what was reasonable for our club. Many Wycombe fans were aware that we were heading towards financial oblivion and took to the streets both in the town centre and outside the stadium to protest. Eventually we were successful in removing our owner and having the fans take over and save the club. It was a very painful time for the club however.

    Reading comments on social media from Derby fans, I do wonder if some realise the gravity of the situation Derby finds themselves in? There seems in incredible reluctance to accept that players may well need to be sold and yes very probably sold on the cheap. This is about survival now, not staying in the Championship. Blaming Wycombe and Middlesbrough is just so far wide of the mark. Derby fans really should be asking the Administrators some awkward questions about what on earth they are doing, because at the moment, they are coming across as quite shambolic. They ought to be doing everything in their power to ensure Derby's survival and attract a buyer, but at the moment they just seem to be sitting on their hands hoping claimants will just go away, which clearly isn't going to happen.

    As for the claim itself, as others have said, however incompetent the EFL have been it's Derby who have profited from staying in the Championship. Claiming again the EFL wouldn't make any sense, would it? It seems that Mel Morris deliberately filed their accounts late to deliberately stave of the points deduction and subsequent relegation. If that is the case (and reports suggest Morris has admitted this) then Wycombe have every right to be aggrieved.

    I hope everything does get resolved to everybody's satisfaction and most importantly I hope Derby survive. I do think some Derby fans would do well to have a period of introspection however. They have every right to be angry, but that needs to be directed at the correct people. Rob Couhig, Steve Gibson, Wycombe and Boro are not the right targets!

  • edited January 2022

    I think it should also be said that despite Rob Couhig being our owner, there is still 25% of the club owned by the fans trust. We have that percentage for the historical reasons others have posted and Rob Couhig has a responsibility to Wycombe wanderers but also everyone of the trust membership to ensure all monies owed are recouped.

    As our CFO said this week (in relation to our match day takings) 25 cents of every dollar earned is the trusts.

  • edited January 2022

    @Wycombe85 said:

    I hope everything does get resolved to everybody's satisfaction and most importantly I hope Derby survive. I do think some Derby fans would do well to have a period of introspection however. They have every right to be angry, but that needs to be directed at the correct people. Rob Couhig, Steve Gibson, Wycombe and Boro are not the right targets!

    I know football supporters are tribal and hence will blindly support their tribe. I suspect I will get abuse here as a result but think it needs saying nonetheless.

    I have absolutely no doubt that Derby behaved badly and the man most responsible for Derby's plight is Mel Morris.

    However I struggle to see that we (or Middlesboro) would win any legal action against Derby County nor have we, as I understand it, commenced one.

    What we have done is taken advantage of a quirk in the football industry requiring "football debts" to be settled in full in an administration and hence inserted ourselves as an obstacle to Derby County coming out of administration by threatening a legal claim and hence introducing an unquantifiable potential liability to any future buyer. We are no doubt seeking to be paid off as a price for clearing that obstacle to the administration. In acting in this way we are putting another clubs future at risk for our own financial benefit. Legally we are doing nothing wrong but morally not so sure.

    No doubt at all that Morris and Derby behaved very badly. But two wrongs don't make a right and personally I think we are acting badly and immorally here. I am uncomfortable with that.

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