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16 minutes ago, BoroAbroad said:

https://dcfcfans.uk/topic/31532-roof-over-pride-park/

Discussion from 2019. Not sure if they ever got around to building.
Didn't realize that PP was based on the same design as the Riverside and used the same architects.  

Having never had the chance to go to either ground I assume the Riverside does have a roof though. :classic_wink:

Yes but Pride park was built after the Riverside and "with improvements to the design" so that's obviously where the roof came from. 🤦‍♂️

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So the millionaires have called a draw in the biggest *** competition and we could get on with the football Enjoyed the day, observations, comforting to see the same fake stone island stall in De

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Absolute scenes when this year's accounts are published and we were set to fail FFP by 3m until Mr Morris stepped in. Think that would turn the entirety of Derbyshire into the world's largest sal

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7 hours ago, boksicdink said:

In reality, it’s a fairly minor issue when considering the unpaid tax bill and stadium issues. 
 

100% agree that the admin are taking this to the wire…why didn’t they agree a set fee for their work!?

Second one first, I don't think they tend to agree a set fee for their work, as they have no way of knowing how long the process will take to find a buyer.  Remember that the Administrators become financially responsible for the business when they are appointed as well.

Regarding the first one, I think the difference is that those amounts were quantifiable from the start.  The Admins would be able to give any interested parties the total monies involved.  As things progress that number could get lower if deals are reached but it shouldn't really get higher.  The claims from us and Wycombe brought uncertainty, and by the sounds of it, were ignored by the admins who essentially hoped that they would just go away, or that someone would take the problem off their hands.

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5 hours ago, Naisby said:

@Changing Times were you there in 86?

I was I lived through it and wasn’t ever presumed to be irrational. We were being Liquidated, that’s not what is happening to your good friends in Derby, they are in administration with 3 buyers lined up. 

They blame everybody but themselves and then think they should get special treatment. I think you must have those kind of irrational tendencies if you think not punishing going into administration is fair. The current punishment is way too weak. 

No I wasn't mate, hence I don't know if I'd be all that rational if my club's future was in jeopardy.

They can have a million buyers lined up, but unless one of them goes ahead with it then they will be liquidated.  I think they will be fine as well, but until it's sorted would you really want assume it's all going to be ok?  Did you assume it would all be ok in 1986?  I know my relatives didn't.

I didn't say there shouldn't be some punishment for going into admin, I said I don't see it as an offence.  To me, an offence is doing something deliberately wrong like trying to figure out a way to circumvent FFP by using different accounting methods perhaps.  Lots of clubs have gone into admin, I don't think they were all trying to pull a fast one though, some of them were just in trouble, and needed protecting, which let's remember, is what admin is used for in business.

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33 minutes ago, BoroAbroad said:

https://dcfcfans.uk/topic/31532-roof-over-pride-park/

Discussion from 2019. Not sure if they ever got around to building.
Didn't realize that PP was based on the same design as the Riverside and used the same architects.  

Having never had the chance to go to either ground I assume the Riverside does have a roof though. :classic_wink:

What Derby needs is more something like this...

10Dghm.gif

The Derby Dome or County Dome sound good to me. 

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4 hours ago, ScarBoro said:

EFL had to sanction the sale, there was no rule preventing it. (Hence the new rule just introduced). They received a valuation and couldn’t prove it was unfair, so couldn’t challenge it.

if you approach three estate agents to sell your house, you often get three very different valuations if your house is at all unusual. Which value is the fair one - you don’t really know until you put it on the market and test the waters. Morris was never going to do that. Ironically now is the time when the value will be tested - and I bet he gets nowhere near the £70m, or even the £40m that it was originally in accounts at.

He got away with it because there was no specific rule preventing him, and fair enough. All the Derby fans were up for it then, but it’s come back to bite them now. If that had been all Mel had done he would have got away with it - but then he wouldn’t have been able to spend all that money based on the depreciation policy change and maybe there would have been no administration.

If there was no rule against it then there was no reason not to do it.  You've just said they haven't broken any rules so what's the problem?

If you're selling your house are you looking to sell it at a 'fair' price, or at the best price you can get?

Morris didn't get away with anything, he's lost a lot of money.  However, if there's no rules against something then you aren't getting away with it, are you?  You're doing something that's perfectly acceptable, and let's remember, has been done by other clubs before now.  Surely the question is, why wasn't it a pre-requisite of Football League membership that the club owns it's own stadium?  Simple as that.  No third party can buy it, and you can't sell it to yourself.  The club owns it and that's it.  We've seen absolute arseholes coming into football, particularly at the lower end of the game, with the intention of making money from selling grounds for real estate development.  This has been going on for years, why didn't the EFL, or the FA, knock it all on the head from the start.

Everyone knows why Derby did what they did regarding the ground, the point is that they were allowed to do it.  That they shouldn't have been is stating the obvious but they were, and that's nothing at all do with Mel Morris, that's entirely down to the people who govern football.

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44 minutes ago, BoroAbroad said:

https://dcfcfans.uk/topic/31532-roof-over-pride-park/

Discussion from 2019. Not sure if they ever got around to building.
Didn't realize that PP was based on the same design as the Riverside and used the same architects.  

Having never had the chance to go to either ground I assume the Riverside does have a roof though. :classic_wink:

Yeah, I'd say similar design because obviously our own ground has changed a bit since it was first built.  The West Stand wasn't connected to the South or North stands, as the corners weren't built originally.  We added them later.  There were also plans that could have had the stadium capacity increased to something like 42,000 I believe.  Derby's was based on ours but slightly different.  Neither ground has a roof but as you say Derby were considering it.  If you want to use a stadium for more than just football then a roof is a big help with that although I think protecting the pitch would make it problematic.  Ideally you'd have one of those retractable pitches as well I guess, as I think just covering the pitch can still lead to problems.

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39 minutes ago, AnglianRed said:

What Derby needs is more something like this...

10Dghm.gif

The Derby Dome or County Dome sound good to me. 

They're already living in a bubble aren't they?

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39 minutes ago, Changing Times said:

 

If there was no rule against it then there was no reason not to do it.  You've just said they haven't broken any rules so what's the problem?

If you're selling your house are you looking to sell it at a 'fair' price, or at the best price you can get?

Morris didn't get away with anything, he's lost a lot of money.  However, if there's no rules against something then you aren't getting away with it, are you?  You're doing something that's perfectly acceptable, and let's remember, has been done by other clubs before now.  Surely the question is, why wasn't it a pre-requisite of Football League membership that the club owns it's own stadium?  Simple as that.  No third party can buy it, and you can't sell it to yourself.  The club owns it and that's it.  We've seen absolute arseholes coming into football, particularly at the lower end of the game, with the intention of making money from selling grounds for real estate development.  This has been going on for years, why didn't the EFL, or the FA, knock it all on the head from the start.

Everyone knows why Derby did what they did regarding the ground, the point is that they were allowed to do it.  That they shouldn't have been is stating the obvious but they were, and that's nothing at all do with Mel Morris, that's entirely down to the people who govern football.

Ok, if you want to be exact with words, Morris didn’t “get away with it” - he was “able to do it”., which is what I was getting at. Remember I was replying to SirBrian and actually agreeing with his point that Morris could sell the ground. I didn’t say there was a problem with it.

again, if you need to be exact with words, substitute “market value” for “fair” when I was comparing the valuation estate agents put on houses and how you couldn’t really establish similar for a football ground that hadn’t been marketed to outside purchasers.

FL have now - I agree far too late - brought the rule in to forbid owners selling fixed assets to themselves at a profit. I don’t know you could say no one could be a member of league without owning own ground though. Surely some of the Conference and/ or clubs promoted in recent years haven’t owned their own grounds - would you bar them from getting into league if they didn’t own ground - say it was owned by local council as some are.? 
what happens if you get into financial difficulties and go into administration. Maybe the only way out is to sell your ground and rent it back. Would you prefer alternative of the club being expelled from league - I wouldn’t if I was a supporter.

 

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19 minutes ago, ScarBoro said:

Ok, if you want to be exact with words, Morris didn’t “get away with it” - he was “able to do it”., which is what I was getting at. Remember I was replying to SirBrian and actually agreeing with his point that Morris could sell the ground. I didn’t say there was a problem with it.

again, if you need to be exact with words, substitute “market value” for “fair” when I was comparing the valuation estate agents put on houses and how you couldn’t really establish similar for a football ground that hadn’t been marketed to outside purchasers.

FL have now - I agree far too late - brought the rule in to forbid owners selling fixed assets to themselves at a profit. I don’t know you could say no one could be a member of league without owning own ground though. Surely some of the Conference and/ or clubs promoted in recent years haven’t owned their own grounds - would you bar them from getting into league if they didn’t own ground - say it was owned by local council as some are.? 
what happens if you get into financial difficulties and go into administration. Maybe the only way out is to sell your ground and rent it back. Would you prefer alternative of the club being expelled from league - I wouldn’t if I was a supporter.

 

I wasn't trying to be exact with words but why not.  Your issue is that you think Morris has been able to get away with selling Pride Park to himself at an inflated fee, yeah?  The stadium was independently valued, so are you claiming that the company hired to do that acted dishonestly?  If you aren't then you have to accept the valuation, whether you like it or not.

Fair/Market value, who cares?  I'm going to sell things for the highest price I can get for them.  Why would a football club risk selling their stadium to outside purchasers when they already have a purchaser set up?  Even if another party was prepared to offer more then you'd still have the risk that at some point you'd be turfed out and have to find a few ground to play in.

As for the final bit, yes I do think that clubs should have to own their own stadium.  It's really the only tangible asset that they have, and obviously, having somewhere to play is a basic requirement of a football club.  It's the one thing that can secure the club within the community in my opinion. Clubs that don't own their own ground have usually sold them because their owner was looking to make money out of it, or occasionally, because the club had financial difficulties.  Selling the stadium to anyone should be an absolute no because if you sell it to the wrong person, you could be absolutely stuffed.  Look at clubs whose owners shafted them by doing this and how difficult it was for the club's afterwards - Charlton, Wimbledon are two obvious ones that come to mind, Doncaster got diddled I think? Brighton? Wrexham?  Go further down the pyramid and it's absolutely rife, but hardly anyone hears about them because the clubs aren't big enough to matter to most people. 

I wouldn't allow anyone to enter the league without owning their own stadium, and I would have had this as a rule for years as well.  I would say if you were 'designing' football now, that's one of the things you'd do.  A club must always own their own stadium, FFP targets to stay under, some form of bond lodged with the FA or EFL related to an owner so that if the club does get into difficulties, and the owner walks away, then there is money available to run the club until a buyer is found.  Make it so that owners can't invest money in the form of loans, or secure loans against anything related to the football club.  You can gift money to the club but that's it.  If you take out a loan it's secured against your own assets, not the football club's.  I could think of loads of things that would make things far better than they are, rather than trying to cobble together different rules and regulations, that almost always include lots handy loopholes for owners, and actually fans as well, to use as and when they are needed.  That's how I look at it anyway.

 

 

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It seems topical to remind those who might never have known or those that have forgotten.

At the match on Saturday Bristol City were honouring players who took a big cut in wages in order to help their club and fans stave of liquidation and the end of their club. This was such a big case that even the Football League took note and decided to do absolutely nothing to change things but woe-betide the next club that found themselves in such a state with debts to football and non footballing creditors.

https://twohundredpercent.net/bad-things-bristol-city-1982/

Well you can guess what happened come 86 and Boro were looking to follow the old practices of football, call in the administrators get most of the debt removed and a new company with the same directors or friends of directors in charge and off we go.

Well as many of you might know the Football League changed its rules and stopped this from happening so when the Inland Revenue took Boro to the High Court for unpaid taxes, the Football League said to remain a member the club must be solvent, prove it was solvent and agree to pay 100% in the pound all debts footballing and non footballing in order to be a member of the Football League.

The old club with its debts and lack of assets could not be saved so a new club and company totally removed from the old one had to be created, ( that’s why we got a new badge and had to plaster 1986 onto everything).

This action by the Football League was done as an example to other club owners who thought going into administration was a soft and easy way to get your debts wiped. 

At the time the actions of the football league towards Boro were hugely unfair as everyone else had used administration and only had to agree to cover 100% of footballing debts, and the threat of the removal of their league status had never been agreed to and stated publicly before. Yet even the most passionate and biased Boro fan knew and understood that things had to change in football and what was done to Boro was harsh but the only way things would change.

Sadly this blueprint for circumstances like boro’s by the FL was never applied so stringently or harshly again and many other clubs found themselves in administration since.

Since 1986 the only real attempt to stop shyster owners ruining clubs and the wider community have been to bring in FFP and a 12 point automatic deduction of points to stop clubs doing this.

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7 hours ago, SirBrian said:

Valuation of Pride Park, Morris was in consultation with the EFL from the start and they sanctioned the sale of PP and they recorded the sale of PP just over £70m will not give the figure for you would not believe me look it up at the EFL.

2nd valuation to the 3rd improvments had been made including a retractable roof, putting more value on the ground, no doubt Derby lied about this for could have bought the roof from Argos for £10 and fitted for a fiver!!!

Naisby with your original post saying £60m took it you were implying that Derby was £60m over gibson's £20m which filtered back which he is alleged to say PP was worth £20m, nothing wrong with the value of PP for EFL would have hammered Derby if there was, and they can bully clubs with their rules, they know they could not accuse the American valuers of corruption for they would certainly lose.

The Americans did nothing wrong, they were asked by MM to value the ground and provided them with future plans to add a roof and turn PP into the premier indoor arena in the East Midlands. These plans were to put a roof on PP and thereby turn it into a venue that could be used 12 months a year not just home and cup games.

Based on the existing value of the ground and increased utilisation of it as an indoor venue with a roof, the Americans did as they were asked and valued the ground as an asset with a figure based on the ground improvements happening. All that is legal and common place, what was disingenuous was using this high figure as a genuine valuation before the improvements had happened and purely to get the club badly needed income in order to stay the right side of FFP.

The whole question is was it wrong to allow this sale at a hugely overvalued level be allowed for FFP purposes. That’s the route cause of all of this the EFL said it was ok, then it wasn’t, then it was maybe ok but shouldn’t be, then no it was wrong and punishment warranted and enforced. 

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20 minutes ago, Naisby said:

Since 1986 the only real attempt to stop shyster owners ruining clubs and the wider community have been to bring in FFP and a 12 point automatic deduction of points to stop clubs doing this.

Which doesn't work.

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6 minutes ago, Naisby said:

The Americans did nothing wrong, they were asked by MM to value the ground and provided them with future plans to add a roof and turn PP into the premier indoor arena in the East Midlands. These plans were to put a roof on PP and thereby turn it into a venue that could be used 12 months a year not just home and cup games.

Based on the existing value of the ground and increased utilisation of it as an indoor venue with a roof, the Americans did as they were asked and valued the ground as an asset with a figure based on the ground improvements happening. All that is legal and common place, what was disingenuous was using this high figure as a genuine valuation before the improvements had happened and purely to get the club badly needed income in order to stay the right side of FFP.

The whole question is was it wrong to allow this sale at a hugely overvalued level be allowed for FFP purposes. That’s the route cause of all of this the EFL said it was ok, then it wasn’t, then it was maybe ok but shouldn’t be, then no it was wrong and punishment warranted and enforced. 

The stadium sale has been passed as ok.  They haven't been punished for that.  Why do people keep suggesting that they have been? 🤷‍♂️

Derby were fined £100k for using a method of amortisation in their accounts that the EFL felt was unsuitable.  They were then punished with a 9 point deduction because after resubmitting their accounts with the common method they were in breach of FFP.  A standard 12 point deduction was given for going into administration.  If they don't exit administration in the 'right' way they will be subject to a further points deduction.  At no point have they been punished for the sale of their ground.

If the whole question is was it wrong to allow this sale then the answer is no it wasn't wrong cos those were the dumb rules in place at the time.  The question should be, why was the loophole in place when every bugger knew about it?  I'd say it's because that's how the EFL, and the owners in particular, wanted it.  If Gibson hadn't kicked up a fuss then it would still be allowed now, they wouldn't have changed it.  It's only because all of this has kicked off that they've done anything at all.  Just one of the reasons that the way football is governed in this country needs to drastically altered.

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13 minutes ago, Changing Times said:

Which doesn't work.

Exactly it’s so weak it’s unbelievable. However punishing the owners who have done this vs punishing the club and the fans is hard as the former are often transitory the latter are permanent.

How do you punish the owners without punishing the club?

How do you limit rectify any past benefits a club got by its owners and remove the chance of any benefits going forward?

How do you change and enforce the rules when those that are going to be judged by them and work with them are all equal members of the league and rivals.?

Personally I think the only way you can do this is by taking two almost opposite paths, both of which have benefits and issues.

1. Remove private owners, all clubs are membership owned 100% and need to be run within a fixed system where there are salary caps based on an individual club balancing the budget.

2. End FFP, but put in place a system whereby club owners need to lodge funds that cover a fixed very high % of the club and it’s assets and liabilities which are audited independently and clear penalties awarded for infractions.

 

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