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Middlesbrough to sue FL's Derby County


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https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2019/05/24/exclusive-middlesbrough-sue-derby-alleged-breaches-offinancial/

Gibson is alleging that Morris has broken the English Football League’s profitability and sustainability rules and Middlesbrough officials contacted Derby on Friday to inform them of their stance.

Boro are understood to be furious that Derby reported a £14.6m profit in their 2017/18 accounts, after Morris sold the club’s Pride Park stadium and then leased it back. Gibson believes that Morris has flouted the rules.

Derby are adamant they have been fully compliant, and the timing of Middlesbrough’s shock move has surprised the club ahead of their play-off final against Aston Villa on Monday.

Morris also twice invited Middlesbrough officials to look at Derby’s accounts in a meeting of all EFL clubs at Nottingham Forest’s City Ground in March.

He said: "Middlesbrough were offered by us in writing to come with their advisors to go through our submissions for profitability and sustainability, [but] they declined."

Gibson’s attempt to force an independent inquiry of club finances was also rejected by all of the Championship clubs in another meeting last month.

Villa and Sheffield Wednesday have also been in Gibson’s sights but his row with Derby is now threatening to turn ugly.

Derby were unavailable for comment.

So my question is, as we don't technically own the AG I assume we're renting or leasing? 

Anyone have any opinion on this? - I can see Gibsons view as if this was a legitimate practice every championship club would be doing it. I suppose it depends if the lease payments actually correctly represent value related to lease of the stadium? 

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1 minute ago, daored said:

Villa are looking to do what Derby did to get round FFP if they don’t go up

True but their starting financial position is worse than Derby’s so the fallout will be bigger. 

I guess I just like Villa far less than I like Derby (and I don’t like them at all!).

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1 hour ago, Merrick's Marvels said:

Yep. And Derby more likely to come straight back down. 

I'm curious to see Derby go up for this reason; it could well be a record breaking low points tally. That might be entertaining. What's  more, it would really show that any team can get promotion from the championship! ☺

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41 minutes ago, intercity said:

I'm curious to see Derby go up for this reason; it could well be a record breaking low points tally. That might be entertaining. What's  more, it would really show that any team can get promotion from the championship! ☺

You might be right !

However, a lot of us thought that about C**tdiff 12 months ago, and they came very close to staying up. Not too many predicted the poor season Fulham had, either.

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It shows how corrupt football has become Wolves skirted round rules with the Jorge Mendes agent situation but having a huge minted Fosun  corporation backing them saw them through that little hiccup, see he is now engineering a Andre Silva  move to Wolves either by buying outright from AC Milan or some kind of swap deal shows how ludicrous things are as he cost £33 million from FC Porto only to be loaned out to Sevilla after 24 games.

There is no incentive to play to the rules as unless clubs go bust Bolton being the latest sod all happens  

 

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34 minutes ago, ScottishRed said:

Doesn’t look like Boro are going to let this one go.

I wonder how much support our owner and of course, MA, are quietly offering Mr Gibson....

Since all Championship clubs voted against an independent inquiry, any support we are offering must indeed be quiet, if not actually silent.

I suspect too many clubs have skeletons in the cupboard to be prepared to allow an inquiry. Gibson is fighting a lone and probably losing battle I fear.

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2 hours ago, ScottishRed said:

Doesn’t look like Boro are going to let this one go.

I wonder how much support our owner and of course, MA, are quietly offering Mr Gibson....

 

1 hour ago, chinapig said:

Since all Championship clubs voted against an independent inquiry, any support we are offering must indeed be quiet, if not actually silent.

I suspect too many clubs have skeletons in the cupboard to be prepared to allow an inquiry. Gibson is fighting a lone and probably losing battle I fear.

I gather Ashton and Lansdown are very vocal against the rule breaking at these league meetings, but can only think they won’t back Gibson on the inquiry as they’d rather get the correct job done through the correct channels rather than dragging it through some kind of public showdown. 

Gibson clearly very peeved and not confident the rules will be correctly applied. It’s all a bloody shambles. The two playoff finalists are not there on merit but due to rule breaking and we should all rightly be calling them out as cheats. 

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They should along with Aston Villa have been demoted from the playoffs- as per the EFL's own rules. Is it too late to strip the winner of promotion?

Well done Steve Gibson- hopefully every other club who has complied and indeed even Birmingham because they got punished and these 2 appear not to have been- will be getting involved, offering support.

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There are two or three obvious legal routes here and probably more I haven't considered- I wonder which one Gibson will choose as a starting point.

  • There is UK Court System.
  • There is potential- and I stress the term 'potential; rather than nailed on, but potential referral to Competition Commission or similar- abuse of a dominant position maybe one angle to explore, letting 'bigger' clubs get away with things others would not. More of an outside tenuous link that.
  • There is the CAS- Court of Arbitration for Sport. Birmingham could have a case here- yes they were punished but then there would be an onus on EFL to prove they acted fairly and consistently with these 2- and possibly Sheffield Wednesday.

On the latter, we don't or won't know as they still haven't released their accounts.? 

Originally due on February 28th 2019 for last season, day before they announced it was shifted by 2 months reporting period wise so being released 30th April 2019- companies can do this once every 5 years I believe, and seemingly still awaiting them at Companies House!

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5 hours ago, The Gasbuster said:

You might be right !

However, a lot of us thought that about C**tdiff 12 months ago, and they came very close to staying up. Not too many predicted the poor season Fulham had, either.

It's why we all love football (well not all of the time).

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1 hour ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

There are two or three obvious legal routes here and probably more I haven't considered- I wonder which one Gibson will choose as a starting point.

  • There is UK Court System.
  • There is potential- and I stress the term 'potential; rather than nailed on, but potential referral to Competition Commission or similar- abuse of a dominant position maybe one angle to explore, letting 'bigger' clubs get away with things others would not. More of an outside tenuous link that.
  • There is the CAS- Court of Arbitration for Sport. Birmingham could have a case here- yes they were punished but then there would be an onus on EFL to prove they acted fairly and consistently with these 2- and possibly Sheffield Wednesday.

On the latter, we don't or won't know as they still haven't released their accounts.? 

Originally due on February 28th 2019 for last season, day before they announced it was shifted by 2 months reporting period wise so being released 30th April 2019- companies can do this once every 5 years I believe, and seemingly still awaiting them at Companies House!

As much as I would like Gibson to succeed I just don’t see it happening. Of the options above I see no mileage in the first two. The competition commission avenue because of the reasons put forward by the poster, and the UK court system because there has never been an appetite for dealing with the governance of football. CAS looks a stretch for me and I’m not sure they would hear a case that hadn’t exhausted all avenues through the uk football authorities, which would have to be shown. 

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2 hours ago, Harry said:

 

I gather Ashton and Lansdown are very vocal against the rule breaking at these league meetings, but can only think they won’t back Gibson on the inquiry as they’d rather get the correct job done through the correct channels rather than dragging it through some kind of public showdown. 

Gibson clearly very peeved and not confident the rules will be correctly applied. It’s all a bloody shambles. The two playoff finalists are not there on merit but due to rule breaking and we should all rightly be calling them out as cheats. 

Maybe, but nothing appears to have been done through the correct channels, which leaves Gibson with no option it seems to me.

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22 minutes ago, RoystonFoote'snephew said:

As much as I would like Gibson to succeed I just don’t see it happening. Of the options above I see no mileage in the first two. The competition commission avenue because of the reasons put forward by the poster, and the UK court system because there has never been an appetite for dealing with the governance of football. CAS looks a stretch for me and I’m not sure they would hear a case that hadn’t exhausted all avenues through the uk football authorities, which would have to be shown. 

It would seem the only avenue through the UK football authorities is the EFL's administration of its own ffp rules which, in guessing Boro will argue has failed in Derby's case. 

As for the UK court system not having the appetite for dealing with the governance of football, that might be the case were Boro taking legal action against the EFL for failing to apply its rules.

However Boro's action is against another club and I'm guessing it is for failing in their duty of fair dealing with other clubs (or whatever the wording is). 

Will be interesting see how this unfolds. Even though I'm sceptical, it would be interesting if other disaffected clubs decide to flex their legal muscles and whether see this as a shot across the bows that they can ill afford to ignore. 

 

 

 

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13 hours ago, joe jordans teeth said:

Would Gibson be doing this if boro would of been promoted,I wouldn’t of thought he would so he should sue himself and tiny penis for crimes against football before he starts this nonsense 

No but then that’s sort of the whole point...!

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20 hours ago, joe jordans teeth said:

Would Gibson be doing this if boro would of been promoted,I wouldn’t of thought he would so he should sue himself and tiny penis for crimes against football before he starts this nonsense 

The thing is, like us they sold quite big to comply- so the timing of it is either perfect or terrible depending on your POV.

His argument would be something along the lines of "We sold Gibson-Traore-Bamford in order to help to comply with the rules on this one. We loaned Braithwaite in January (admittedly he had no love for Pulisball but let's gloss over that). We didn't play Downing towards the end of the season as it would incur a contractual renewal with a higher wage- we did all this and yet Derby made a highly questionable transaction with a related party avoiding punishment- and they finished a place and a point above us in the playoffs- this stinks! Cheats prosper".

In short, why take those steps with the players and those further ones during the season if the rules not necessarily enforced correctly? He has a very valid point- we sold Flint-Bryan-Reid in part for exactly the same reasons. Lots of clubs probably did the right thing, whether either to cash in or for the right reasons- and where did it get them?

Do I think he is playing his hand in the best possible way? Probably not. Do I think he is right on it though, the principle and hopefully to yield some big changes? 100%.

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3 minutes ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

The thing is, like us they sold quite big to comply- so the timing of it is either perfect or terrible depending on your POV.

His argument would be something along the lines of "We sold Gibson-Traore-Bamford in order to help to comply with the rules on this one. We loaned Braithwaite in January (admittedly he had no love for Pulisball but let's gloss over that). We didn't play Downing towards the end of the season as it would incur a contractual renewal with a higher wage- we did all this and yet Derby made a highly questionable transaction with a related party avoiding punishment- and they finished a place and a point above us in the playoffs- this stinks! Cheats prosper".

In short, why take those steps with the players and those further ones during the season if the rules not necessarily enforced correctly? He has a very valid point- we sold Flint-Bryan-Reid in part for exactly the same reasons. Lots of clubs probably did the right thing, whether either to cash in or for the right reasons- and where did it get them?

Do I think he is playing his hand in the best possible way? Probably not. Do I think he is right on it though, the principle and hopefully to yield some big changes? 100%.

Since the EFL has shown no interest in bringing cheats to book I don't see what alternative Gibson has.

The best hope is that it forces other clubs to stand up for the principle instead of hiding in the shadows.

However, I believe the most likely result is that FFP will to all intents and purposes be allowed to wither on the vine as more clubs defy the rules knowing that a precedent has been set.

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21 hours ago, joe jordans teeth said:

Would Gibson be doing this if boro would of been promoted,I wouldn’t of thought he would so he should sue himself and tiny penis for crimes against football before he starts this nonsense 

Someone cheats, and not only gets away with it , can potentially be massively profitable from it. Cheat and fail is bad enough, cheat and force others to fail because of that is a whole different matter. 
Can't help feeling if they were mid table going nowhere they might have been looked at differently. Brum got done , but it didn't affect their season too much, a points deduction for FLDC (and/or Villa) would have changed the promotion race massively. You can imagine the heads of the EFL squirming at just the thought of it #bottlejobs.

Standard and style of football is another question in another court. Gibson was an idiot for appointing Pulis, probably looked at Cardiff/Warnock and thought it could work for them. Not so much !

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Some excellent (as per) analysis by Kieran Maguire- nails it, how the £41m valuation was reached! Credit to him, on his Twitter- breaks it down brilliantly!

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Believe that is the Depreciation of Pride Park, must be since construction...because that is very big! Surely not a 1 year one. Yet an 'independent 'valuer nearly doubled it in a year.

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Had they sold it to a truly verifiable third party company/individual and decided to take their chances on it not being turned into luxury flats or something then fair enough. Provided market rent paid.

Had they sold it to a truly verifiable third party company/individual as helping to fund a new ground- fair enough.

Had they sold it to some foreign investors who again must be truly and verifiable third party or individuals who for example then may decide to look to utilise its potential for other uses, bit like AG- as it does have the facilities- on the proviso they keep that cash generated and Derby pay market rent- fair enough.

Hell, had they even sold it at Market Rate to Mel Morris then again...they wouldn't be profiting and they would have been docked points and out the playoffs. It's the "profit" that is the huge game changer here.

Cannot believe this was signed off though- surely if Aston Villa especially and also Sheffield Wednesday have done this post the issue being flagged, it won't be allowed to stand. Surely!!

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3 minutes ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

Had they sold it to a truly  and verifiable third party company/individual and decided to take their chances on it not being turned into luxury flats or something then fair enough. Provided market rent paid.

Had they sold it to a truly and verifiable third party company/individual as helping to fund a new ground- fair enough.

Had they sold it to some foreign investors who again must be truly and verifiable third party or individuals who for example then may decide to look to utilise its potential for other uses, bit like AG- as it does have the facilities- on the proviso they keep that cash generated and Derby pay market rent- fair enough.

Cannot believe this was signed off though- surely if Aston Villa especially and also Sheffield Wednesday have done this post the issue being flagged, it won't be allowed to stand. Surely!!

I admire your faith in the powers that be but given that it has already been allowed to stand the EFL no longer has a leg to stand on so it will have to be allowed in future.

That being the case other scams will follow, the EFL will roll over and step by step FFP will crumble. It will be like all those ancient laws that are still on the statute book but not enforced.

If Steve is not prepared to publicly back Gibson now he is going to have to decide whether virtue is its own reward or whether he might as well join in the free for all that will ensue.

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