Thought it was a 12 point deduction for the admin, and then the further 9 point deduction for the fiddling of the books to avoid punishments. Are you under transfer embargo, too? Got a few talented young players you could probably bring in some money with.

The club is attractive to anyone who wants to take the club on. If you are looking at taking a club on there are plenty of clubs in better position than Derby. Massive debts and no assets.
My fear is the tax man will wind the club up and will have to start again in the non league. It will mean a name change.

This is desperately sad news for such a fine club.

Why not do a Rangers? Would probably rid you of the debt.

Whilst I accept MM's comments as to why administration was the only route viable, and I also accept that he has operated with the best intentions (of getting Derby promoted) it did of course leave us in a very vulnerable situation. I equally accept that Covid was the final straw (despite what George Thorne is reputed to have said in the DET)....and it all fell down like like a house of cards. Equally as I've said I will be surprised if we're the last club to go this way and indeed once the Furlough scheme is ended I think we'll see mass redundancies across the board in this country....but that's another story.
What I cant stomach is the PR disaster he brought about. Why make the announcement on the day before the game - without consulting the Management and the Team ??? How the team played on Saturday is truly remarkable under the circumstances and as I said yesterday, we all, no matter how we feel about MM have to pull together as one having a siege mentality and support the club as best we can. The Rangers fans stuck by their club - and so should we.
No doubt today we'll hear more about what's happening. Hopefully it wont be as bad as we fear....UTR

I don’t buy into “Mel had the best intentions” the best intentions any owner of a football club can have is ensuring the club is financially stable and to make sure the club had a future for the next generations of supporters. When Mel took over everyone was slagging GSE off. I got shot down at the time when I said GSE have done a great job in securing a future for the club and possibly the only owners I’ve known at Derby who haven’t put the club in financial difficulties when they left. All I got was Mel is local and he will look after the club. If he wasn’t local how long ago would have been when the fans turned on him before now

Mel is in a long line of chairmen/supporters who wanted the best for their team but also wanted to bask in the reflected glory of what the team achieved. He gambled and lost, some of his decisions contributed to that loss.

In his business career he doesn't have a record of standing by his businesses but has treated them as a sellable commodity. Owning Derby was a different type of project and one he where he had no experience. His one strategy was to get Derby in to the Premier League, when this failed, so did Mel. I compare his hubris with that of Peter Ridsdale at Leeds. Both are really Arthur Daley type of characters with delusions of their entrepreneurial ability.

While blaming Mel is easy we should also look at Sam Rush who presided over some of our worst player acquisitions and of course the expectancy of the fans.

Spart, with Morris' record of intervention, I can't imagine Rush ever working independently of him

It's an utterly horrific situation. Gambling in the short term to try to get promotion was a reasonable business plan, given that it has proved successful for many clubs. Almost certainly it would have worked if recruitment had been better and he would now be a hero. But there had to be a fallback position in case his plan should fail. I don't think any of us thought his gambling would result in anything worse than having to revert to being a bog standard Championship team that would then have to try to become successful more gradually.

We need a miracle. At the moment there is the possibilty of absolutely massive points deductions, not just this season but continuing into next season if the EFL go for the jugular and some mystery investor doesn't emerge to scoop up the mess. Even then we might be looking at League 2 the season after next. If that doesn't happen there is a real chance that the club might genuinely disappear in its current form and a new club be formed that would have to start at the bottom of the pyramid.

Sheff Utd sold out.

Apparently more tickets being made available?

The tickets are being bought as collectors items. They might be worth something in years to come if we disappear.

comment by Spart-Derby really are the best says red dog. (U4603)
posted 33 minutes ago
The tickets are being bought as collectors items. They might be worth something in years to come if we disappear.
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Just when I'd got a lift lined-up in Vid's Bentley too.

According to Rooney they can't sell any players until the window, which makes sense and gives a glimmer of hope that an owner can be found and in place before the window meaning the administrator won't be the one who decides who goes.

It would be such a shame to see the promising academy graduates who've recently come through (and those coming through) leave cheaply and develop elsewhere when we would need them for a bounce back.

comment by FinlandRam (U3621)
posted 25 minutes ago
According to Rooney they can't sell any players until the window, which makes sense and gives a glimmer of hope that an owner can be found and in place before the window meaning the administrator won't be the one who decides who goes.

It would be such a shame to see the promising academy graduates who've recently come through (and those coming through) leave cheaply and develop elsewhere when we would need them for a bounce back.
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Given what is deemed the 'Derby Way', administration or not, we'd have sold our talented youth way below the expected asking price.


I can't see us folding, there has to be an opportunist out there who sees the potential in purchasing the club, but that would be dependent on the stadium being included. I do fear MM will play hardball with this asset and one of the reasons why potential (realistic) takeovers collapse.

Applaud him for his high risk approach or condemn him for his reckless management, he does have to now be considered unfit for football in any senior capacity and I hope he's struck off. ( understanding is he's looked to negotiate remaining on the board in the past but that just can't be feasible)

comment by FinlandRam (U3621)
posted 39 minutes ago
According to Rooney they can't sell any players until the window, which makes sense and gives a glimmer of hope that an owner can be found and in place before the window meaning the administrator won't be the one who decides who goes.

It would be such a shame to see the promising academy graduates who've recently come through (and those coming through) leave cheaply and develop elsewhere when we would need them for a bounce back.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

If youve got a membership or a subscription to Rams tv, you can watch the u23s at 7pm tonight v WHU.
Let's just hope it's not for the final time

Desi, apparently is was advantageous for a new owner to have Mel onboard due to the debts to him meaning there was some kind of financial benefit or offset allowed within FFP. Can't claim to be an expert but it was mentioned in The Men Who Sell Football documentary.

As you say, I imagine this is a highly unlikely scenario now.

It looks like we were sadly right Chicago, the way things are going we will be playing Mickleover Sports pretty soon.

Cocu comes to manage our team, fails miserably and he and a couple of pals get £6,2 million, it's madness.

It is a pity that Rowett left, his football was dour but at least he seemed to know what he was doing. Was it him who chose to buy Nugent instead of Watkins, or was it someone else?

When you think of the rubbish we've paid good money for like Camara, Jozefzoooom and so many others, while other teams pick up decent players like Toney etc. What did Joe McClaren do all day. He would have been better off running a paper shop.

Very sad times indeed.

I can't remember seeing Greaves at the BBG. My first recollection of seeing Spurs was Martin Chivers.

Anyone listening to the moan in ?
Great first call from 'Rob'

VC. It’s interesting when you talk to Rowett about his time as Derby manager. He said he never actually signed a player for Derby apart from Winnall on loan. All the players that signed for Derby when he was manager was by Morris and Joe McClaren. Rowett couldn’t see the point in selling Christie cheap and then paying over £4m to replace him with Wisdom. Rowett left to join Stoke because his position at Derby was untenable under Morris and he felt he’d be sacked before Christmas. Funny tho’ the biggest transfers fee taken by Derby in the last 3 years were the £ from Stoke for Rowett and Chelsea for Lampard.
It was under McClaren that nudge to was signed. Watkins wouldn’t never have been given time by the Derby fans to develop.
Back in May 2015 McClaren said he needed a CB and wanted Lewis Dunk and brighton agreed a fee of £4m. Morris sacked McClaren and then before appointing Clement he thought Shackell was a better signing than Dunk and then also signed Bent, Ince, Wiemann and Pearce. Out of that lot only ince and Weimann left for any transfer fee. Morris’ method to sign a player was. Has he played for Derby before? Is he the player of the year at their current club or in waghorn’s case well we’ve tried to sign him before so we will sign him now.
Blame Covid and the EFL as much as you want but Morris paid substantial fees for Shackell, Johnson, butterfield, Blackman and camara. Paying £1.75m for Camara is possibly the worst money ever spent.

Good stuff. It's not just the signings though. Some releases have been questionable at best. And, some of those released went on to do better things elsewhere - which is presumably a coaching issue?

Not playing the 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 thing but Anya was a perfectly decent player. Not sure what or why but just never used.

Well said Griff, totally agree and those transfers frighten me even now!

You are totally wrong Griff, paying the entire season's transfer budget for Derek Hayles was the worst signing ever. It took years to recover from that even though West Ham were stupid enough to buy him from us for a much lower fee.

What was so bad about the Morris era was the cumulative effect of so many mediocre or poor players signed for too much and on far too generous contracts.

Lots of great comments on here and on the Moan in.

(Un)fortunately I missed the interview with MM altho it sounds to have been a fudge.

I have to admit I've been having sleepless nights over all this. One of last night's thoughts was - is admin really necessary? It's certainly totally wrong morally. MM got us into this mess and as far as I can tell he has the financial means to get us out of it although I concede that, no matter what your wealth, getting enough of it into liquid cash form could be a problem. Apart from the Dell loans (which may be secured on the stadium for all I know) the biggest debt is owed to HMRC and I just wonder if they had threatened a compulsory winding up petition and if it may have been that which forced MM to take the less drastic step of administration to forestall winding up. Assuming that that debt is unpaid PAYE it just emphasises what a pig's ear MM has made of running the club. I assume all or most of the borrowing has been incurred to enable payment of the ludicrous wages MM bestowed on undeserving players but that MM has effectively said to HMRC, "sod you lot, I'm not paying the PAYE unless and until you force me." That's how it seems and if this is correct, what a way to run a business!

At least it now seems as though MM's company which owns the stadium is not being placed in admin so there should be a footy pitch for us to play on (doubtless at high rents in MM's pocket.) But, because of company law he gets to walk away from all this - at the same time keeping the main asset (albeit mortgaged, presumably) while lots of other folk fear for their jobs.

There may be one legacy from MM's reign, viz the Academy, the jewel in the crown but I will be sickened to the core if all the best talent there is lost via the administrators who will not care one jot about the fans in this (and rightly so of course as they are concerned with the creditors). But let's face it, the way things are at present it's likely that the Academy will be our only source of players for the foreseeable future (unless the admors sell the freehold!)

Apologies to all for rambling and banging on but this is get it off my chest time!

Just an observation but I am interested in identifying the moment at which we stop looking backwards and apportioning blame and start to look to whatever the future may hold.

I suspect that this can't reasonably be expected until we have confirmation of the points deduction and any other penalties we may or will suffer.

Mind you some folk have very long memories..........