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It's a divisional matter. Presumably Ashton has resigned as well, will be interesting to see who is elected.

Sorry I can't find the paragraph where the LAP says that you were open or honest, could you help me out? The actual decision by the LAP creates a different impression. I agree that the breach admitted and the breach proved were not for failing the financial limits, but they still fall under the under the P&S rules, see paragraph 10 of the LAP decision. What makes you think that the club won't get punished for the two breaches? Personally I wouldn't trust a word of what the club says on this matter. The press statement is so riddled with "it's not our fault" whines and misstatements I thought my kids had written it having been caught with their hands in the biscuit tin again. However I do agree that the effect of the decision is that the club will have to resubmit their P&S calculations, that will determine if there is a breach of the P&S financial limits, subject to any other issues such as the rent for the stadium which is mentioned in the DC decision. Whilst I have no issue with your serious research and the methodology of your calculations as I understand it you still don't have the real data. That is crucial. There are also other calculations out there. Finally it intrigues me that following the LAP decision the club have not come out officially and said "Despite the decision by the LAP we have not breached the FFP limits".

As I said previously we would be delighted if you could let us all have the figures proving this. I wouldn’t trust anything the club says on this. Unless they are available we will have to await the outcome. If Derby didn’t fail FFP then I still expect a 3 points penalty for next season. Misleading is a serious offence. In addition the EFL AGM could be interesting next month.

Taking your points in turn: 1. Agreed. 2. Agreed. 3. Sort of. Derby admitted to misleading the EFL with regards to the description of the amortisation policy. It also turns out that they didn't tell their auditors the truth, nor did they keep any paperwork, and then fudged the actual amortisation when the figures were inconvenient. As regards the LAP then that constituted two QC's and a retired Master of the Rolls (the second most senior judge in England and Wales), I'd suggest that you read their CVs and the decisions of some of the cases that they were involved in before suggesting that they weren't competent because they aren't accountants. In essence the EFL won the appeal because the original panel did not deal with the expert evidence correctly, and the LAP agreed with the EFL's expert. That isn't an accounting issue that's just bad planning from the club as they chose not to tender any expert evidence, or maybe they couldn't find anyone willing to be an expert for them? The LAP also said that the accounts were "at worst seriously misleading", that's as close as you will get to any quasi-judicial panel saying that the club lied. As to whether or not the club overspent, I don't know, I haven't seen the actual revised amortisation figures for each year, but if you have them I would love to see them. 4. By that that logic any attempted offence is no offence as you failed, the specific has also failed in previous EFL cases. Plus I doubt that you can prove that Derby would not have been relegated, had they abided by all the regulations correctly. I would also suggest that the club did get an on field advantage given the Play Off appearances in 2015/16, 2017/18 and 2018/19. It wasn't a simple accounting error, it was a deliberate scheme to break the rules on a ? or bust policy which should be punished accordingly. As to the actual punishment who knows, I suspect that the club are deliberately time wasting to avoid a decision by the AGM when the final position is usually agreed (although that can be extended if the club agree a penalty). If the club has breached FFP I would expect to see at least an additional 3 point penalty due to the aggravating circumstances, but then so separate penalty for those two offences. More than happy to discuss further.

To be honest@Mr PopodopolousDCFC have created more than enough problems for themselves without us helping out ???. The amortisation on intangible assets must only be included in the accounts of the company owning the assets. The goodwill adjustment is extraneous fluff. They admitted misleading the EFL with regards to their accounts - they failed to tell the EFL until just before the hearing what their amortisation policy actually was - and they didn't tell their auditors either. Add to that that they couldn't produce a single piece of paper proving their methodology - they changed numbers mid-season when it looked bad - oh and the LAP basically called the liars (they didn't use the word, but you have to read between the lines and "at the worst seriously misleading" means "you've been caught telling whoppers"). The official release from DCFC is laughable and just creates confirmation bias for their own supporters. "We've only been caught out on one issue - so no problems" um - but you have still been caught out. The offence accepted is serious enough for a points deduction to be handed out. The second offence of using an unacceptable amortisation policy is, in itself, not a major issue. What it does do however is force DCFC onto a straight line policy as that is the default. That policy probably tips DCFC into a significant FFP failure for at least the three year period ending 2018, and possibly 2017 and 2019. Taking into account the aggravating factors of misleading the EFL and using an unacceptable amortisation policy you might see a 15 point deduction sometime next season.

When you put this in conjunction with a change in controlling entity- Sevco 5112 Limited to Gellaw Newco 203 Limited- this appears to be an attempt to muddy the waters maybe in terms of Impairment that is excluded from P&S and Impairment that is not? Still can't work out if which of these is most likely...for avoidance of doubt, Impairment of Player Registrations unless there are specific circumstances, counts against P&S in full. The Goodwill shown in the Gellaw 203 accounts (the new parent) is more than likely to have been created on the acquisition of the football club shares by the new parent. Goodwill = Fair Value of the assets on acquisition less the amount paid. The football club prepares its accounts to 2019 and devalues it's intangibles by £22 million. The parent prepares its accounts and has to review the value of its goodwill and has decided that the asset acquired (the football club) is worth £32 million less than it thought it was partly because of the large impairment in value, so it impairs its goodwill by £32 million. The two adjustments are connected but considered in a different way and other factors come into play in valuing the goodwill over and above the intangible write-down in the subsidiary, so the figures will rarely be the same. The football club impairment counts for FFP limits. Neither the creation nor the impairment of the goodwill in the parent count for FFP limits.

So after a brief scan - my view is looks like Derby fouled up. 1. They had no Expert Evidence at the Disciplinary Committee. 2. The EFL's Expert was unchallenged on the key matters. As the Appeal Tribunal says - you need damn good reasons to ignore the expert, that's why they are there. As an aside Derby's press release whines that there was no accountant on the panel. However the panel is made up of one appointee from each party and an independently appointed chair. So Derby could have appointed an accountant if they so wished. As I suggested previously maybe they couldn't find one to agree with them!

Derby Appeal decision 2021.05.07 - EFL v Derby County FC Appeal - Decision including Disposition.pdf

Because: 1. He may not 2. You destroy his dreams and aspirations 3. You destroy the dreams and aspirations of every other youngster in the club and every other youngster in the world will think twice or three times before signing up.

In reality I doubt that it will go back further simply because too much emotional energy has been spent already. The breaches are clearly large and potentially aggravated, but I can see some mitigating factors as well. I have to say that if I was advising the club I would be seriously looking at a deal with the EFL that resulted in relegation this season, bringing the ground back into the group at the £81 million valuation and wiping the slate clean. Sitting currently with a transfer embargo, a owner who doesn't want to afford the club, a potential significant points penalty next season and therefore relegation anyway, with potential further FFP failure going forwards is the alternative more alluring? 2021/22 is looking really decidedly dodgy already. It appears that the penny really hasn't dropped on the DCFC forum yet. It isn't the failure to comply with accounting standards which will carry the punishment (it sounds pretty minor) it is the impact that the restatement has. No matter how much they complain about it the amortisation will need to be readjusted to a straight line methodology. There really is nothing further to say on that point. Some of the comments on that forum are really quite scary. After all, as I tell myself after every match I go to, including delights in the old Division 4 when we finished a division below some other side and below Mansfield, Torquay and Halifax, it's all a bit of fun ....

Believe me, Forset fans talking about Derby make @Mr Popodopolous look like a pussy cat!

Well it could make for an interesting AGM. I wonder if Wycombe will table a motion that expells Derby from the League?

The position is now clearer having revisited the original decision. I doubt that the appeal was made on a point of principle, we want to appeal but if we win it has no impact. So if we assume that the amortisation policy is held to be wrong and the appeal has an impact then Derby must have breached FFP. That would be a starting point of a 12 point deduction. Can't see it being any less than that. Kieran Maguire's figures suggest that that is the case.

Sounds like the EFL have won their appeal against some part of Derby's amortisation policy. The comments on the Derby forum are epic!

Nixon is referring to new charges. The old charges still need to be dealt with. Allegedly still under soft embargo. Not sure I would want to invest.

I think that this is all a bit premature. No one has been charged yet and no one has submitted 2021 accounts. They have some time to rectify matters. I hope that this part of a media campaign by Reading on the unfairness of sanctions, not a private deal done in the back corners of a smoky zoom call!

So what Blackburn are saying is: 1. We have submitted the 2020 accounts and P&S stuff to the EFL, 2. 2020 position is bad so we aren't going to publish the accounts until the latest possible date so no one really knows, 3. As for FFP at 30 June 2021 we need to sell some players before that date or we are in big ?. 4. Therefore we are under a complete Embargo. 5. Which players do you want where we can sell at anything over book value in the 2020 accounts? PS we have to sell by 30 June 2021.

This completely misrepresents what has happened. The EFL are just firing a warning shot across the bows of those who haven't submitted final accounts. Currently there is no real penalty just the inability to sign out of contract players. All those clubs who want to, will be able to submit final accounts and agree their FFP position by the beginning of June at which point their embargo will be lifted. If any club can't or wont do that their embargo will stay. At which point I hope that they will remain or become complete embargoes until the posiiton is resolved. I doubt there will be much sympathy from Messrs Lansdown, Gibson and the other 12 who have complied so far. PS I understand that the quote is not from @Mr Popodopolous it just appeared like that!

A clever move by the EFL in putting all those with no accounts submitted onto an Embargo. It gives anyone who is a bit slow two months to file the accounts, agree their FFP position and move on. It neatly avoids a club running into the 2021/22 season having bought a bunch of players without having sorted 2019/20. Any club not submitting accounts will be deliberately doing so. As to the claim of 'Financial Armageddon' well it is the Daily Mail.

It may well of done. However as there is now no FFP test for 2019/20 then they can't fail ... As @Mr Popodopolous says they have also thrown the kitchen sink at the accounts and altered the accounting date so difficult to really tell what is happening. My particular favourite is including a provision for the refund of Premier League TV receipts of £7 million, where the original Premier League TV receipts don't obviously appear in the accounts ...

Not sure why FFP comes into play, I think you might have this one the wrong way around.? I wouldn't want to reduce their losses.

They won't and I didn't mean to imply that they could. The more general point that I was trying to make was that this is not just an FFP issue as that is the second stage. The first stage would be arriving at the accounts correctly. Applying that to any one club is difficult as it is very much fact dependent. I can easily make an argument that a substantial impairment is due in 2020 accounts as no significant income was received to March 2021 due to covid. I can equally make a strong argument that that has to be covid related. The first is simply the correct accounting and cannot be challenged. How far the second one goes is interesting.

The problem you have is that is more of an accounting issue than an FFP issue. Under the accounting standards for intangible assets you need to review these at the end of each accounting period. The value at that date needs to reflect any material changes to the period and the amounts included in the balance sheet must reflect the reality of the position when the accounts are signed off. Signing off May 2020 accounts in March 2021 would require you to look at the period to March 2021 and decide what input your intangibles will have in generating income in the future looking forwards from May 2020. Large impairments are inevitable. The gaming will then come into how you maximise the amount that falls outside FFP as 'ignored due to Coivd' and how much intotal you can push through the period to the end of this season to fit within the FFP limits to 20/21.

Why would you buy Deby County for the rumoured £60 million with all the rubbish hanging over their heads still.

It looks as if they have managed the transition well. The wage bill is £30 million, definitely mid-Championship and £18 million of the loss was depreciation on transfer fees. The balance of fees to be written off at the end of the 2020 accounting period is only £16 million. They have headroom to lose £80 odd million to 2021 and still meet FFP. It just demonstrates why Gibson gets annoyed with all the messing around elsewhere.