Speaking on the most recent episode of the Price of Football podcast, football finance expert Kieran Maguire has provided an update on Derby County’s amortisation hearing.
The Midlands outfit were charged with breaching the EFL’s financial fair play (FFP) regulations on two accounts back in January 2020.
One account related to the £81m sale of their stadium to owner Mel Morris two years prior, and the second was the amortisation of their players.
Amortisation is defined as the action or process of gradually writing off the initial cost of an asset. In a footballing sense, this essentially equates to the fact that the value of a player will decrease over the course of their contract until they are a free agent.
According to a report on iNews, Derby were able to remove losses of over £30m between 2015 and 2018, and the EFL could end up handed the Rams a points deduction as a punishment. Maguire had his say on the matter, although it appears little has been decided yet.
He said: (3:55) “Now is that acceptable? Is that not acceptable? I’ve looked at the small print, and the simple answer is it depends. It depends on how good your lawyers are, and our silver tongue friends frankly will be looking at, they’re probably going on a SpaceX with Elon Musk with the things that they’ll be reaping from these types of things.
“So, the EFL appealed, looking at the documents that have gone up on the EFL website, and you’ve got to applaud them for sticking the documents up, and this ran to 10s and 10s and 10s of pages.
“The criticism of the EFL’s expert witness was perhaps a bit harsh at the initial case, and the EFL have made some progress, but do we know what’s going to happen next? The simple answer is no, apart from it’s going back to another review panel.”
TIF Thoughts on Derby’s hearing…
The Athletic recently reported that the EFL confirmed they had won their appeal to find Derby guilty of breaching FFP and that they could still be relegated from the Championship despite surviving on the last day of the season.
However, contrasting reports have also surfaced claiming no decision has yet been made, and that any punishment, such as a points deduction, is likely to come into play next season, meaning Derby will remain the second tier of English football.
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