r00fie1
Well-known member
Afternoon
I wish I didnt believe this prevarication will continue ad-infinitum.
EFL statement ref Derby (updates)
- Thread starter Anterimus
- Start date
I wish I didnt believe this prevarication will continue ad-infinitum.
BoroMart
Well-known member
That date isn't arbitrary, it would seem that if they go beyond the start of the season, any points deduction will be in 21-22 but will likely be heavier than if they accept relegation now. This is a bargaining tool to see how much of a gambler Mel Morris is
Last edited:
BoroMart
Well-known member
That date is the deadline. They may decide to file now and take the punishment now rather than have this hang over them for a season knowing that no one will sign for them, and no one will buy the club
DCI_Gene_Hunt
Well-known member
The tone of the statement they put out doesn't suggest they will give in lightly. I can't see any way they will accept relegation now. If they went down now Rooney would walk, no one would want to sign for them or buy the club anyway (or if a buyer was willing it would be for a much lower price)
They may as well have points deducted and have a chance of staying up rather than just give in. No way will the powers that be have the bottle to deduct them more than 12 points.
Caesium137
Well-known member
Straight swap with Hartlepool seems a fair enough punishment to me.
TeaCider
Well-known member
Rofesleg
Well-known member
What are the EFL lieing about?
Laughing
Well-known member
Prevaricate doesn't really mean lie.
DCI_Gene_Hunt
Well-known member
32 Red might be a bit concerned given how much they put into advertising with Derby based on Rooney being there
Rofesleg
Well-known member
It depends on context I suppose.
So how are the EFL prevaricating then?
BoroMart
Well-known member
But they might deduct them 36 points for three successive breaches of FFP 2018 figures would influence the 2018, 2019 and 2020 calculations. Could be 12 points for each breach if the calculations breach each year. On top of that they could impose a transfer embargo, and further fines. would be an absolute done deal.
DCI_Gene_Hunt
Well-known member
As fella said - I live in hope!!!
rob_fmttm
Administrator
Two Championship clubs sold their grounds to new companies and not necessarily in the right accounting year for FFP (in case of Sheff Wed - we still don't know for Derby) - one is now in League One, the other escaped in the last game but could now end up there - great work by their owners. Something certainly happened in the end at Hillsborough and it could soon at Derby. What their fans will be hoping is that it is not THE END for The Rams.
r00fie1
Well-known member
NB:
Context.
In the instance: to avoid making a decision / hesitating / slow-process
prevaricate
verb intransitive formalUK /prɪˈværɪkeɪt/
Word Forms
DEFINITIONS1
- 1
to avoid saying or doing something because you want to cause a delay [or avoid making a decision]
Derby trying to scream the loudest to cover the crap they've got themselves into it.
If Derby's correctly submitted accounts show they broke the rules, then that is a new punishment. And, as they've already received a fine for dubious accounting, then it's a deserved 2nd punishment.
If Derby's correctly submitted accounts show they broke the rules, then that is a new punishment. And, as they've already received a fine for dubious accounting, then it's a deserved 2nd punishment.
FatCat
Well-known member
So what would happen with Wycombe - if derby delay and start this season in the championship and are then demoted next season, where does this leave Wycombe?
Jonny Ingbar
Well-known member
There's good piece in The Athletic which I'll post, but in short the EFL are pushing hard for a points deduction, given they believe the £100k fine is too lenient (who doesn't, that's less than £35k a season).
Derby will obviously resist this, so its unlikely to be invoked before the new season starts.
The obvious conclusion is that a points deduction will be applied mid-season, should it happen at all.
And that leaves poor Wycome in a position where they will probably have to sue Derby for loss of income.
Jonny Ingbar
Well-known member
Most humble apologies for including the disturbing picture in the piece (Mel Morris)
There is a theory in sport that a big event or a famous victory will inspire the next generation, leading to a wave of success a decade or so later.
Think Sir Nick Faldo and the crop of decent English golfers who followed him, Chris Boardman kickstarting Team GB’s cycling goldrush with his Olympic win in 1992 or how the British government justified the billions spent on London 2012. American tennis great Billie Jean King put it best a few years ago when she said “you have to see it, to be it”.
If that is true, the East Midlands will become the accountancy capital of England by about 2040, as Derby County fans have recently become experts on amortisation, FRS 102 and why you need an active market to claim a future economic benefit. The major firms should forget recruiting trainees from universities and just mine Derby’s ticket-office database.
The latest lesson arrived in The Athletic’s inbox at 11.29pm on Wednesday and it was the stuff of nightmares for Derby’s fans, players and staff. Everyone who has followed this saga knew it was coming at some point soon, we just thought it was safe to close our laptops for another day.
Here is the English Football League’s statement, analysed line by line…
“An independent disciplinary commission has delivered its verdict on sanctions for Derby County relating to ongoing disciplinary proceedings.”
In January 2020, the EFL charged Derby with two breaches of its regulations. The first was related to the sale of Pride Park to a company set up by Derby owner Mel Morris specifically for that purpose.
Why? Because Derby, along with several other EFL teams, had spotted a loophole that let clubs count the profit from a one-off sale of a tangible asset — a stadium, training ground, shed full of lawnmowers — in their annual profit and loss statement. This meant a potential breach of the league’s financial fair play regulations could be magically erased.
Aware that Derby were going to sail past the permitted £39 million limit for losses over three seasons, Morris pulled this lever in 2018. The EFL could not object to that but it did not like the £81 million price he charged himself. So the League charged the club for overvaluing it.
The second charge was for how Derby were totting up how much they were spending on transfers.
This will need no explanation to readers in Derbyshire but amortisation is how accountants spread the cost of acquiring an asset over time. For footballers, you take the transfer fee, let us say £3 million, and you stretch that over the length of the player’s contract, we will go for a three-year deal.
Now, every other club in the land, including Derby before 2016, does this on a “straight-line basis”, which means your amortisation costs are £1 million a year for three years. Another way to think about this is what value the club is assigning to that player. After year one, it is £2 million, after year two, it is £1 million and at the end of their contract, when they can leave for nothing “on a Bosman”, it is zero.
Derby however, came up with something different.
Instead of amortising in even steps towards zero, they applied “expected recoverable values”, which meant the player in the example above might go from £3 million to £2.5 million in the first two years, cutting the annual amortisation charge, and then from £2.5 million to zero in the final year.
Mel Morris pictured at Pride Park before the first lockdown (Photo: Mike Egerton/EMPICS/PA Images via Getty Images)
A bigger charge in year three, then, but a degree of control over costs that no other club in England has been using, which is fine until you consider what impact that has on the fair and consistent application of FFP.
The “independent disciplinary commission” in the statement is the three-strong panel of experts who were appointed to hear these charges.
In August 2020, after seven months of legal thrust and counter-thrust, the commission threw out the stadium charge, deciding that £81 million was fair enough, and rejected most of the amortisation charge, too. Derby’s knuckles were lightly rapped for not fully explaining what they were up to but that was basically that, as far as the panel was concerned.
The EFL was furious, though. In football terms, the debate over Pride Park’s price had been a 5-0 thrashing. Derby had all the answers and the EFL’s property expert was taken to the cleaners. But the EFL was convinced it had lost the amortisation argument thanks to a dreadful refereeing mistake and it wanted a rematch.
So, it appealed against that part of the decision in September, hence the reference to “ongoing disciplinary proceedings”.
“In May, an independent league arbitration panel ruled that the disciplinary commission was wrong to dismiss the league’s expert accountancy evidence, which demonstrated that the club’s policy regarding the amortisation of player registrations was contrary to standard accounting rules.”
After another eight months of even fiercer judicial jousting about who could take part in the appeal hearing (Middlesbrough, still smarting after Derby pipped them to the last play-off spot in 2018, were desperate to get stuck in), how much of the case could be relitigated and whether the League could introduce fresh evidence, the EFL won.
Derby, for what it is worth, won all of those preliminary skirmishes, but the League claimed a surprisingly convincing win on the key argument.
“More specifically, the panel determined that the club’s policy was not in accordance with accounting standard FRS 102 because it failed to accurately reflect the manner in which the club takes the benefit of player registrations over the lifetime of a player’s contract.”
As explained in an earlier monologue, the appeal panel, another trio of high-powered jurists, categorically rejected Derby’s approach to amortisation.
Once you get past all the legal lingo and accountancy speak, the written judgement is pretty simple: Derby’s method was too clever by half and it had a “dramatic” impact on the club’s numbers.
The panel did not let the EFL enter any new evidence but its ruling notes that the draft accounts for the 2018-19 season, which we still await, reveal Derby were set to make “player-related impairments”, or write-offs, of between £11.7 million and £19 million for “expected recoverable values” that failed to materialise.
To put it another way, Derby were able to “significantly reduce” their costs between 2015 and 2018 “compared to other clubs”, which meant “they were potentially able to increase their spend on player purchases”.
Noting that no other club used this method, the panel wrote “it is a very striking feature of this case that the club were seeking to do something no one else seems ever to have considered permissible.”
“Tonight, the disciplinary commission has announced that the sanction to be imposed in respect of those breaches, is a financial penalty of £100,000 to be paid to the EFL and a reprimand for the club as to its future conduct regarding the preparation of its annual accounts.”
This brings the story up to Wednesday afternoon, as all interested parties (more on that in a moment) were aware this ruling was in the pipeline.
In fact, they had all been asking the commission to get a move on, as next season’s fixtures for the Championship, League One and League Two were scheduled to be published on Thursday and there were 72 sets of fans eagerly awaiting that news at 9am, three hours after the clubs themselves would be told but nine hours after the league had to get the information to Opta, its data partner.
Tipped off that Wednesday was the day, the League contacted the club to coordinate a response to the ruling, whatever it may be. The league prepared a few different drafts and sent the core of the text — minus the decision — to Derby’s press office for feedback. The text was then forwarded to the club’s lawyers, who asked for one specific point to be made, which we shall get to, and then sent back to the League.
And then…nothing. Not until bedtime, anyway.
The Athletic understands the League and club received the verdict at 9.30pm: the commission has reconsidered its view of the amortisation method in light of the “error in law” and fined Derby £100,000 and issued a warning.
Derby avoided relegation to League One on a dramatic final day in the Championship (Photo: Pat Scaasi/MI News/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
That is not an insignificant amount of money for any EFL club during a pandemic, particularly one that has been for sale for two years and has failed to pay its wages on time.
But £100,000 is a lot less than the £10 million-plus hit Derby’s finances would take if they were docked more than one point, which is the sanction the EFL wants.
We have written about the travails of Wayne Rooney’s men last season at great length, so there is no need to rake over any coals here. Suffice it to say, Derby finished the season in 21st place, one point above Wycombe Wanderers in the final relegation spot, but eight goals better off in terms of goal difference.
The League has never publicly said it wants to retrospectively relegate Derby but it has never denied it either, and its intentions are clear from the August 2020 and May 2021 written judgements.
And on Thursday, Derby spelled it out in a statement published on the club website.
“In addition, the club has also been ordered to file restated accounts for financial years ending 30 June 2016, 2017 and 2018 that meet the requirements of FRS 102, together with updated profit & sustainability calculations, if necessary.”
Some have wondered if this demand could bring fresh charges for breaking the £39 million threshold for allowable losses during this period.
That is unlikely, though, as the sale of Pride Park, at £81 million, has been cleared and that should give Derby enough breathing space even with the addition of circa £30 million in amortisation costs.
What this may do, though, is add further delay to this three-year saga.
“Both Derby County and the EFL have the right to appeal that sanction decision.”
But further delay looks inevitable, as there is little chance that the EFL will not appeal against this decision.
Why? Well, ever since the shock they received in 2019 when Bury went bust and Bolton very nearly followed them, the League has taken a much harder line against clubs that breach its financial rules. This is, after all, what its member clubs asked it to do.
So, after several years when there were almost no disciplinary charges dished out for financial issues, we have seen a steady stream of cases: Birmingham City, Bolton, Macclesfield Town, Southend United and Sheffield Wednesday have all been in front of disciplinary commissions and all, bar Southend, have been back before appeal panels.
Quite simply, if the EFL does not get the result it wants first time, it tends to try again. As it points out, the process is independent and its job is to uphold the rulebook its member associations, the clubs, decide and sign up to.
It could also point out the panel that fined Derby is the same panel that ridiculed large parts of the League’s case the first time around and cleared the club. But then a different panel found parts of Derby’s case to be ridiculous and agreed with the League.
There is also a widely held view in football, although not by anyone who has been before one, that disciplinary commissions are too lenient. It is felt they are too willing to listen to pleas of mitigation and too quick to poke holes in the game’s rules.
Sport Resolutions, the organisation that oversees sports arbitration in the UK, disputes this view, pointing out that its panels tend to be of a higher quality than sports’ rulebooks.
“That being the case, ahead of the publication of the 2021/22 season fixture lists on 24 June at 9am, the EFL can confirm that it has developed an interchangeable fixture list for Derby County and Wycombe Wanderers, while the disciplinary process is finalised.”
And now we get to why Derby believe the EFL has crossed a line from being even-handed to becoming vindictive.
As explained, there had been communication between the parties about the strong possibility a verdict would come, as requested, before the publication of the fixtures. There had also been some conversation about a statement.
But having told the League they strongly dispute there is any possibility the EFL can retrospectively apply a points deduction that would relegate them, Derby were of the view that unless this was the commission’s specific ruling — and then they would be appealing against it — there was no need to do anything other than publish the fixtures with Derby in the Championship and Wycombe in League One.
To do anything else, they believe, is to give Wycombe false hope, make preparations for next season even harder than they already are and further complicate Morris’ attempts to sell a club that has already cost him £200 million since buying his first stake in 2014.
“The club is disappointed the EFL has not, as is usual, waited until after the publication of the disciplinary commission’s reasons nor agreed a statement with the club, and in addition has chosen to be selective about the decision and present it in a form which omit key dates and details, which the club has provided by way of clarity above,” its statement said on Thursday.
According to the club, the key date omitted in the EFL statement is August 18, which is when they must file their restated accounts. Whether that date is key or not, is debatable for the reason already outlined, namely that it is unlikely Derby are in any new FFP bother because of this ruling.
To be clear, the EFL believes it does not need any new breach to ask for a points penalty: the intention to game FFP by using a prohibited amortisation method is enough to merit punishment, perhaps as much as three points for every season the method was used. Nine points, then?
But, to be equally clear, the disciplinary commission disagrees and thinks a fine is sufficient.
In their statement, Derby pour scorn on the idea there is any need for the EFL to come up with the interchangeable fixture list.
“The club disputes that a points’ deduction at any time is appropriate, and disputes that it is lawful for the EFL to seek to impose one retrospectively, altering the final League placings after the season has already finished,” it says, before adding that Derby are looking forward “to competing in the Championship in the 2021/22 season”.
The next two stories on the club website are about the Championship fixture list, with a section on “When do we play Forest?”
“The fixture list for both the Championship and League One will be published in full based on the 2020/21 final standings, pending any appeals relating to this decision.”
There is a story about the League One fixture list on the Wycombe website, too, but it concludes with the same two sentences in the EFL’s Wednesday night statement.
They clearly agree with the EFL that there is a “possibility” — albeit a remote one, given the speed with which this case has moved so far — that a different panel might also agree with the EFL and decide to knock two or more points off Derby’s total last season.
After all, Macclesfield Town finished the 2019-20 season above Stevenage only for an appeal panel to concur with the League that a disciplinary commission had been too soft on the Silkmen.
On Thursday morning, a senior source at Wycombe told The Athletic “we’re probably not keeping our heads down any longer on this issue”.
That evening, club owner Rob Couhig, a US-based lawyer, told a meeting of the Wycombe supporters’ trust he was “absolutely shocked” that Derby only received a fine and asked “what’s the purpose of having rules if you don’t follow them?”
By Friday, Couhig’s head was well and truly above the parapet.
“It is beyond disappointing that a club can systemically cheat and end up with a slap on the wrist,” he told the BBC. “You have years upon years of violating the rules.
“I don’t want to sound bitter about it. It is not over yet, obviously. But it just doesn’t make any sense.
“A £100,000 fine is what you would expect to receive if it was merely a technical (breach). In this case it was way beyond technical. That is what the appellant panel said.”
And that is why this is heading back to another appellant panel.
(Photo: Nigel French/PA Images via Getty Images)
There is a theory in sport that a big event or a famous victory will inspire the next generation, leading to a wave of success a decade or so later.
Think Sir Nick Faldo and the crop of decent English golfers who followed him, Chris Boardman kickstarting Team GB’s cycling goldrush with his Olympic win in 1992 or how the British government justified the billions spent on London 2012. American tennis great Billie Jean King put it best a few years ago when she said “you have to see it, to be it”.
If that is true, the East Midlands will become the accountancy capital of England by about 2040, as Derby County fans have recently become experts on amortisation, FRS 102 and why you need an active market to claim a future economic benefit. The major firms should forget recruiting trainees from universities and just mine Derby’s ticket-office database.
The latest lesson arrived in The Athletic’s inbox at 11.29pm on Wednesday and it was the stuff of nightmares for Derby’s fans, players and staff. Everyone who has followed this saga knew it was coming at some point soon, we just thought it was safe to close our laptops for another day.
Here is the English Football League’s statement, analysed line by line…
“An independent disciplinary commission has delivered its verdict on sanctions for Derby County relating to ongoing disciplinary proceedings.”
In January 2020, the EFL charged Derby with two breaches of its regulations. The first was related to the sale of Pride Park to a company set up by Derby owner Mel Morris specifically for that purpose.
Why? Because Derby, along with several other EFL teams, had spotted a loophole that let clubs count the profit from a one-off sale of a tangible asset — a stadium, training ground, shed full of lawnmowers — in their annual profit and loss statement. This meant a potential breach of the league’s financial fair play regulations could be magically erased.
Aware that Derby were going to sail past the permitted £39 million limit for losses over three seasons, Morris pulled this lever in 2018. The EFL could not object to that but it did not like the £81 million price he charged himself. So the League charged the club for overvaluing it.
The second charge was for how Derby were totting up how much they were spending on transfers.
This will need no explanation to readers in Derbyshire but amortisation is how accountants spread the cost of acquiring an asset over time. For footballers, you take the transfer fee, let us say £3 million, and you stretch that over the length of the player’s contract, we will go for a three-year deal.
Now, every other club in the land, including Derby before 2016, does this on a “straight-line basis”, which means your amortisation costs are £1 million a year for three years. Another way to think about this is what value the club is assigning to that player. After year one, it is £2 million, after year two, it is £1 million and at the end of their contract, when they can leave for nothing “on a Bosman”, it is zero.
Derby however, came up with something different.
Instead of amortising in even steps towards zero, they applied “expected recoverable values”, which meant the player in the example above might go from £3 million to £2.5 million in the first two years, cutting the annual amortisation charge, and then from £2.5 million to zero in the final year.
Mel Morris pictured at Pride Park before the first lockdown (Photo: Mike Egerton/EMPICS/PA Images via Getty Images)
A bigger charge in year three, then, but a degree of control over costs that no other club in England has been using, which is fine until you consider what impact that has on the fair and consistent application of FFP.
The “independent disciplinary commission” in the statement is the three-strong panel of experts who were appointed to hear these charges.
In August 2020, after seven months of legal thrust and counter-thrust, the commission threw out the stadium charge, deciding that £81 million was fair enough, and rejected most of the amortisation charge, too. Derby’s knuckles were lightly rapped for not fully explaining what they were up to but that was basically that, as far as the panel was concerned.
The EFL was furious, though. In football terms, the debate over Pride Park’s price had been a 5-0 thrashing. Derby had all the answers and the EFL’s property expert was taken to the cleaners. But the EFL was convinced it had lost the amortisation argument thanks to a dreadful refereeing mistake and it wanted a rematch.
So, it appealed against that part of the decision in September, hence the reference to “ongoing disciplinary proceedings”.
“In May, an independent league arbitration panel ruled that the disciplinary commission was wrong to dismiss the league’s expert accountancy evidence, which demonstrated that the club’s policy regarding the amortisation of player registrations was contrary to standard accounting rules.”
After another eight months of even fiercer judicial jousting about who could take part in the appeal hearing (Middlesbrough, still smarting after Derby pipped them to the last play-off spot in 2018, were desperate to get stuck in), how much of the case could be relitigated and whether the League could introduce fresh evidence, the EFL won.
Derby, for what it is worth, won all of those preliminary skirmishes, but the League claimed a surprisingly convincing win on the key argument.
“More specifically, the panel determined that the club’s policy was not in accordance with accounting standard FRS 102 because it failed to accurately reflect the manner in which the club takes the benefit of player registrations over the lifetime of a player’s contract.”
As explained in an earlier monologue, the appeal panel, another trio of high-powered jurists, categorically rejected Derby’s approach to amortisation.
Once you get past all the legal lingo and accountancy speak, the written judgement is pretty simple: Derby’s method was too clever by half and it had a “dramatic” impact on the club’s numbers.
The panel did not let the EFL enter any new evidence but its ruling notes that the draft accounts for the 2018-19 season, which we still await, reveal Derby were set to make “player-related impairments”, or write-offs, of between £11.7 million and £19 million for “expected recoverable values” that failed to materialise.
To put it another way, Derby were able to “significantly reduce” their costs between 2015 and 2018 “compared to other clubs”, which meant “they were potentially able to increase their spend on player purchases”.
Noting that no other club used this method, the panel wrote “it is a very striking feature of this case that the club were seeking to do something no one else seems ever to have considered permissible.”
“Tonight, the disciplinary commission has announced that the sanction to be imposed in respect of those breaches, is a financial penalty of £100,000 to be paid to the EFL and a reprimand for the club as to its future conduct regarding the preparation of its annual accounts.”
This brings the story up to Wednesday afternoon, as all interested parties (more on that in a moment) were aware this ruling was in the pipeline.
In fact, they had all been asking the commission to get a move on, as next season’s fixtures for the Championship, League One and League Two were scheduled to be published on Thursday and there were 72 sets of fans eagerly awaiting that news at 9am, three hours after the clubs themselves would be told but nine hours after the league had to get the information to Opta, its data partner.
Tipped off that Wednesday was the day, the League contacted the club to coordinate a response to the ruling, whatever it may be. The league prepared a few different drafts and sent the core of the text — minus the decision — to Derby’s press office for feedback. The text was then forwarded to the club’s lawyers, who asked for one specific point to be made, which we shall get to, and then sent back to the League.
And then…nothing. Not until bedtime, anyway.
The Athletic understands the League and club received the verdict at 9.30pm: the commission has reconsidered its view of the amortisation method in light of the “error in law” and fined Derby £100,000 and issued a warning.
Derby avoided relegation to League One on a dramatic final day in the Championship (Photo: Pat Scaasi/MI News/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
That is not an insignificant amount of money for any EFL club during a pandemic, particularly one that has been for sale for two years and has failed to pay its wages on time.
But £100,000 is a lot less than the £10 million-plus hit Derby’s finances would take if they were docked more than one point, which is the sanction the EFL wants.
We have written about the travails of Wayne Rooney’s men last season at great length, so there is no need to rake over any coals here. Suffice it to say, Derby finished the season in 21st place, one point above Wycombe Wanderers in the final relegation spot, but eight goals better off in terms of goal difference.
The League has never publicly said it wants to retrospectively relegate Derby but it has never denied it either, and its intentions are clear from the August 2020 and May 2021 written judgements.
And on Thursday, Derby spelled it out in a statement published on the club website.
“In addition, the club has also been ordered to file restated accounts for financial years ending 30 June 2016, 2017 and 2018 that meet the requirements of FRS 102, together with updated profit & sustainability calculations, if necessary.”
Some have wondered if this demand could bring fresh charges for breaking the £39 million threshold for allowable losses during this period.
That is unlikely, though, as the sale of Pride Park, at £81 million, has been cleared and that should give Derby enough breathing space even with the addition of circa £30 million in amortisation costs.
What this may do, though, is add further delay to this three-year saga.
“Both Derby County and the EFL have the right to appeal that sanction decision.”
But further delay looks inevitable, as there is little chance that the EFL will not appeal against this decision.
Why? Well, ever since the shock they received in 2019 when Bury went bust and Bolton very nearly followed them, the League has taken a much harder line against clubs that breach its financial rules. This is, after all, what its member clubs asked it to do.
So, after several years when there were almost no disciplinary charges dished out for financial issues, we have seen a steady stream of cases: Birmingham City, Bolton, Macclesfield Town, Southend United and Sheffield Wednesday have all been in front of disciplinary commissions and all, bar Southend, have been back before appeal panels.
Quite simply, if the EFL does not get the result it wants first time, it tends to try again. As it points out, the process is independent and its job is to uphold the rulebook its member associations, the clubs, decide and sign up to.
It could also point out the panel that fined Derby is the same panel that ridiculed large parts of the League’s case the first time around and cleared the club. But then a different panel found parts of Derby’s case to be ridiculous and agreed with the League.
There is also a widely held view in football, although not by anyone who has been before one, that disciplinary commissions are too lenient. It is felt they are too willing to listen to pleas of mitigation and too quick to poke holes in the game’s rules.
Sport Resolutions, the organisation that oversees sports arbitration in the UK, disputes this view, pointing out that its panels tend to be of a higher quality than sports’ rulebooks.
“That being the case, ahead of the publication of the 2021/22 season fixture lists on 24 June at 9am, the EFL can confirm that it has developed an interchangeable fixture list for Derby County and Wycombe Wanderers, while the disciplinary process is finalised.”
And now we get to why Derby believe the EFL has crossed a line from being even-handed to becoming vindictive.
As explained, there had been communication between the parties about the strong possibility a verdict would come, as requested, before the publication of the fixtures. There had also been some conversation about a statement.
But having told the League they strongly dispute there is any possibility the EFL can retrospectively apply a points deduction that would relegate them, Derby were of the view that unless this was the commission’s specific ruling — and then they would be appealing against it — there was no need to do anything other than publish the fixtures with Derby in the Championship and Wycombe in League One.
To do anything else, they believe, is to give Wycombe false hope, make preparations for next season even harder than they already are and further complicate Morris’ attempts to sell a club that has already cost him £200 million since buying his first stake in 2014.
“The club is disappointed the EFL has not, as is usual, waited until after the publication of the disciplinary commission’s reasons nor agreed a statement with the club, and in addition has chosen to be selective about the decision and present it in a form which omit key dates and details, which the club has provided by way of clarity above,” its statement said on Thursday.
According to the club, the key date omitted in the EFL statement is August 18, which is when they must file their restated accounts. Whether that date is key or not, is debatable for the reason already outlined, namely that it is unlikely Derby are in any new FFP bother because of this ruling.
To be clear, the EFL believes it does not need any new breach to ask for a points penalty: the intention to game FFP by using a prohibited amortisation method is enough to merit punishment, perhaps as much as three points for every season the method was used. Nine points, then?
But, to be equally clear, the disciplinary commission disagrees and thinks a fine is sufficient.
In their statement, Derby pour scorn on the idea there is any need for the EFL to come up with the interchangeable fixture list.
“The club disputes that a points’ deduction at any time is appropriate, and disputes that it is lawful for the EFL to seek to impose one retrospectively, altering the final League placings after the season has already finished,” it says, before adding that Derby are looking forward “to competing in the Championship in the 2021/22 season”.
The next two stories on the club website are about the Championship fixture list, with a section on “When do we play Forest?”
“The fixture list for both the Championship and League One will be published in full based on the 2020/21 final standings, pending any appeals relating to this decision.”
There is a story about the League One fixture list on the Wycombe website, too, but it concludes with the same two sentences in the EFL’s Wednesday night statement.
They clearly agree with the EFL that there is a “possibility” — albeit a remote one, given the speed with which this case has moved so far — that a different panel might also agree with the EFL and decide to knock two or more points off Derby’s total last season.
After all, Macclesfield Town finished the 2019-20 season above Stevenage only for an appeal panel to concur with the League that a disciplinary commission had been too soft on the Silkmen.
On Thursday morning, a senior source at Wycombe told The Athletic “we’re probably not keeping our heads down any longer on this issue”.
That evening, club owner Rob Couhig, a US-based lawyer, told a meeting of the Wycombe supporters’ trust he was “absolutely shocked” that Derby only received a fine and asked “what’s the purpose of having rules if you don’t follow them?”
By Friday, Couhig’s head was well and truly above the parapet.
“It is beyond disappointing that a club can systemically cheat and end up with a slap on the wrist,” he told the BBC. “You have years upon years of violating the rules.
“I don’t want to sound bitter about it. It is not over yet, obviously. But it just doesn’t make any sense.
“A £100,000 fine is what you would expect to receive if it was merely a technical (breach). In this case it was way beyond technical. That is what the appellant panel said.”
And that is why this is heading back to another appellant panel.
(Photo: Nigel French/PA Images via Getty Images)
Caesium137
Well-known member
It will be disgraceful if they get away with it as their £81million stadium sale allows them to meet FFP as this has already been accepted as fine.
The whole thing stinks.
The EFL appear to be trying (too little too late IMO) but they seem not to be fit for purpose. I don't see why it has to go to independent appeals panels all the time. It's not as if the league are being unfair and vindictive. Derby have deliberately tried to circumvent FFP in a systematic manner for almost five years. Other teams have had points deductions and been relegated in this time.
This is a shameful episode for the league. They need to make an example of Derby and anyone else who breaches the rules even slightly. If found guilty of any financial irregularities at all surrounding FFP it should be an instant 12 point deduction, a second offence automatic relegation and the League one gets three auto spots and a play-off space to replace you at the end of the season.
Clubs that stay within the rules and are well run financially should be rewarded, not disadvantaged by the constant cheating.
The whole thing stinks.
The EFL appear to be trying (too little too late IMO) but they seem not to be fit for purpose. I don't see why it has to go to independent appeals panels all the time. It's not as if the league are being unfair and vindictive. Derby have deliberately tried to circumvent FFP in a systematic manner for almost five years. Other teams have had points deductions and been relegated in this time.
This is a shameful episode for the league. They need to make an example of Derby and anyone else who breaches the rules even slightly. If found guilty of any financial irregularities at all surrounding FFP it should be an instant 12 point deduction, a second offence automatic relegation and the League one gets three auto spots and a play-off space to replace you at the end of the season.
Clubs that stay within the rules and are well run financially should be rewarded, not disadvantaged by the constant cheating.