HMRC can't take control of the ground or training ground if it's owned by a different legal entity than the one that owe the tax.
The EFL can't relegate them to the national league as they won't accept a club in administration.
If the club goes into liquidation the players contracts are null and void. There are no other meaningful assets. HMRC and "the football family" risk getting nothing.
£20 million is nothing in tax revenue terms, the tax gap (tax payable v tax paid) is about £35 billion a year. On a yield of over 800 billion. That doesn't include tax dodged by Amazon, Google etc.
There is no outcome that everyone will be happy with out of this mess.
Let’s just let them off then. I hope Thomas is watching closely. Sign a load of very expensive players. Don’t bother with the PAYE. Get promoted on the quick. When HMRC ask for their money just cut a deal. I’ve absolutely no time or sympathy for any business that gets into trouble the way Derby County have. Cheating and duplicitous. Nail their bollox to the wall would be my solution after all £20 million isn’t very much at all apparently.
It isn't very much in terms of government spending and tax revenues, which is how you framed it.
The way its going no one, HMRC, arsenal, the players, the people that print the programs, countless other small businesses etc are going to get anything at all. Not a penny. And a city loses its football club. Not sure who wins in that scenario?
It isn't a matter of winning. It is a business in debt that decided not to pay its bills , overspend and hope the Holy Grail was found. That cannot be allowed just because it is a football club.
But if it wasn't a football club it wouldn't be an issue. It it was, let's say, a factory that was visible but badly managed you could liquidate the company, pay the creditors something and the person that brought the assists could continue trading almost as if nothing happened.
Under the current rules us and Middlesbrough would almost have certainly been expelled from the league in the 80s. We can't moan that football clubs aren't businesses to be bought and sold at a wim then moan that they are exactly that.
Morris should be personally liable for the debts HE is responsible for, but he isn't. I have no idea how many people are directly, and indirectly, dependant on the football club to feed their families. Almost ever body said someone should have done something to save Bury, from the government down. I don't see how this is any different.
But a football club isn't like a factory, in any possible way. It doesn't have business related assets (other than stadium/training ground usually) and it doesn't produce anything. Derby have already decided to sell their only asset. Rather than a factory, they are like an IT consultancy firm. They rent their office, their consultants are all IT contractors who in the real world would all have left long ago once pay starting arriving late or bonuses were deferred. That normal consultancy firm would simply vanish off the face of the earth if badly managed.
In fact thousands of badly managed firms do simply vanish every month in this country. The vast majority don't have assets that can be sold on and the company reborn to keep trading. The whole factory analogy is at least 40 years out of date. In a service industry companies' often just don't have the assets for the sort of rebirth you're talking about. Where are the reborn TopShop, TopMan and Dorothy Perkins? Their only assets was their name, which is pretty much all Derby have if the league expels them.
Fair point the factory anology is out dated. The wider point though is that its purely because its a football club that its even a conversation.
Where is the distinction between the owner and the club in this case? "Our club not yours" doesn't seem to apply to Derby. We have seen people, from multiple clubs, over the last few years writing to everyone from the local council to the United Nations demanding someone do something to save a club. Now the attitude to Derby is liquidate them!!
Other clubs struggled and couldn’t afford to run the club day to day, derby chose to spend shit loads of money they didn’t have on the team whilst not hoping that they’d reach the PL and that’s balance the books
fuck em
Bury overspent, the owner bailed, the new owner couldn't/wouldn't pay the debts. What's the ethical difference?
137 years of football in a city shouldn't be able to be wiped away through 1 man's reckless spending, the same way someone shouldn't be able to bankrupt any club for personal gain.
Liquidation is a no win situation.
But it already has. That's the point. There's no exemption due to age or sentimentality. It's a long established club yes but it's now insolvent and with no value.
It is terrible for the supporters but that doesn't mean that any other business in the sane position would be saved, and nor should they.
I am not suggesting that the tax payer saves them. I am suggesting the win win would to be agree a CVA. If the alternative was to liquidate Derby and pay the tax bill in full I would agree that that is right and proper. Its not.
They could indeed do worse than Mike Ashley, and several clubs have done so, including us. I'd still not want him involved at Charlton unless the alternative was bankruptcy or ESI, though. So I guess whether this is a good idea for Derby depends on quite how desperate they are.
He always said every penny the club makes goes back into to the club.
He actually made a profit on his time there. The fact is that outside the top 3-4 clubs in the PL if you aim to break even you eventually go down or continually are bottom half. Newcastle average 51k per match and they vastly underperformed in his time there. Norwich keep getting promoted... make a tidy profit while there.... get relegated. Over and over.
And if he buys Derby and tries to break even they will be in L2 in two years. Breaking even is not a good strategy in football, especially in the lower leagues. Studies have proven this over and over. Ashley is smart enough to know he will lose a lot of money at Derby. He hates losing money. I seriously doubt he buys them.
He always said every penny the club makes goes back into to the club.
He actually made a profit on his time there. The fact is that outside the top 3-4 clubs in the PL if you aim to break even you eventually go down or continually are bottom half. Newcastle average 51k per match and they vastly underperformed in his time there. Norwich keep getting promoted... make a tidy profit while there.... get relegated. Over and over.
And if he buys Derby and tries to break even they will be in L2 in two years. Breaking even is not a good strategy in football, especially in the lower leagues. Studies have proven this over and over. Ashley is smart enough to know he will lose a lot of money at Derby. He hates losing money. I seriously doubt he buys them.
The twin times Newcastle did get relegated under Ashley he throw a load of money at to make sure they went back up...
Not enough praise in this thread for Rooney IMO. I've not got much sympathy for the Derby owners for how they've ended up in this state, but plenty for their fans. Would not have been surprised if they'd gone down without much of a fight, but the manager has clearly got them fighting for every win
Not enough praise in this thread for Rooney IMO. I've not got much sympathy for the Derby owners for how they've ended up in this state, but plenty for their fans. Would not have been surprised if they'd gone down without much of a fight, but the manager has clearly got them fighting for every win
13 points from their last 5 games and only 8 points from safety now.
Not enough praise in this thread for Rooney IMO. I've not got much sympathy for the Derby owners for how they've ended up in this state, but plenty for their fans. Would not have been surprised if they'd gone down without much of a fight, but the manager has clearly got them fighting for every win
You can argue whether Rooney should have been allowed to sign the players he did at the start of the season, but he's doing his personal managerial reputation no harm with the results Derby have been getting
I have no sympathy for Derby County. Reading admitted and accepted there penalty instantly. Derby have been fighting this for a long time. I’m sure if they had just accepted they had done they would now be well on the road to recovery. They deserve everything they get.
I have no sympathy for Derby County. Reading admitted and accepted there penalty instantly. Derby have been fighting this for a long time. I’m sure if they had just accepted they had done they would now be well on the road to recovery. They deserve everything they get.
Well they wouldn't would they. The solution to the problem, from Derby's pov, is a take over and fresh investment. Regardless of every or anything else the biggest problem is Morris can't, or won't, put any more money in.
Comments
i’ve seen a few fans saying he was never a realistic purchaser And was just raising his own profile
https://www.themag.co.uk/2019/10/the-truth-about-the-money-mike-ashley-does-make-from-newcastle-united-a-must-read/
Mike Ashley is a very smart businessman, whatever you think of him, he won't be investing in anything that won't be personally making him money.
Probably better than not existing at all though.
"Coventry City needed just one goal to edge past Wayne Rooney's Derby County into the FA Cup fourth round."
Sun this morning
Wayne Rooney's Rams will now turn their full attention to avoiding relegation following their 21-point deduction.
or Wayne and Mikes Derby Sports Direct County?
the possibilities are almost endless
And if he buys Derby and tries to break even they will be in L2 in two years. Breaking even is not a good strategy in football, especially in the lower leagues. Studies have proven this over and over. Ashley is smart enough to know he will lose a lot of money at Derby. He hates losing money. I seriously doubt he buys them.
Cheap option I suspect, and appears to have shown he can do well with a limited budget, which Everton might like the sound of given their FFP issues.
Urgent question: EFL governance and Derby County FC – House of Commons, Tuesday 18 January
https://www.itv.com/news/central/2022-01-18/derby-county-future-efl-english-football-league-respond-to-vendetta-claims