Derby County FC Petition

Introduction

We recently posted a message on our Twitter account following a request from Derby County Supporters Trust and the FSA. We were asked to promote a petition to ask the Sports Minister to intervene to try to sort out the club’s administration position between the administrator and EFL – the purpose being to stop DCFC being liquidated. 

We thought this would be an un-controversial thing for a sister Supporters Trust to do, so we did it quickly via the social media route rather than writing to Trust members. However, many respondents were totally unsympathetic to the DCFC position, they thought the DCFC fans had shown no sympathy for SWFC and its point deduction/relegation, and DCFC deserved what was coming to them, up to and including liquidation. 

With hindsight our action in sharing this petition without some explanation of the reasoning was an error given the nature of responses received and comments made.

The Derby County Situation

DCFC have been in a long running argument with EFL over the club’s financial reporting and management and whether this breached FFP regulations. The final decision was that DCFC had breached the regulations and the club received a 9-point penalty which was applied this season, with a further 3 points suspended.

The club owner, Mel Morris, had been trying to sell DCFC with no success and eventually withdrew his financial support for the club, as a result it was placed into administration. The administration resulted in a further 12-point penalty being applied this season. The total 21-point deduction is likely to result in DCFC’s relegation to League One, if they are able to complete the season.

It is believed that the administration is a complex one, including legal action being taken by Wycombe Wanderers and Middlesbrough against DCFC. There are arguments in play around who is responsible for what in the process. There are now some real concerns that DCFC may not be able to exit administration and may be liquidated.

The DCFC Trust (supported by local MP’s) are trying to lobby the Sports Minster to intervene in the administration process to try to ensure it is resolved quickly and the club does not face the prospect of liquidation or expulsion from the league. To further this lobbying effort a petition has been set up which so far has 58,000 signatories. This is the petition we circulated via Twitter.

The SWFC Position

SWFC suffered a 6-point deduction for a breach of FFP regulations – in practice this was caused by the failure of Mr Chansiri to submit paperwork for the stadium sale on time and the failure of the various managers he appointed to be able to galvanise the players to make up the 6 points lost. If Derby had suffered the FFP related points deduction last season SWFC would still have been relegated as Wycombe finished third from bottom ahead of SWFC. 

Obviously, the final day defeat at Derby was the last act in our relegation story – we understand that this is very raw for some fans. Some Derby fans may have used this as an opportunity to banter at SWFC and some did not. 

Solidarity

Wednesday fans and DCFC fans have done nothing to put their clubs into the positions they are in. This is down to the respective club owners, the EFL and other EFL clubs. There may have been banter from Derby fans and there might have been banter from SWFC fans had the positions been reversed. That’s the nature of football banter and rivalry. In the end neither set of fans deserve for their club to be in difficulties as they have done nothing wrong. Neither set of fans deserve to see their club being liquidated.

SWFC Supporters Trust supports fans who are struggling to save their clubs when the difficulties faced are not of their making, and we make no apologies for doing our bit to seek to help DCFC fans by sharing and supporting their petition. This is what solidarity looks like in practice and it’s the type of solidarity we hope our fans would be offered if our club was ever in a similar position to that currently faced by DCFC.

The Fan Led Review

Ultimately both SWFC and DCFC got into financial difficulties because their respective owners gambled financially, and gambled with the FFP rules, both gambles were an attempt to compete in the cut-throat Championship where relegated PL clubs have a built-in financial advantage. 

We all have common cause in fighting for the full implementation of the recommendations from the Tracey Crouch review of football governance – this includes fairer distribution of resources across the football pyramid, stronger regulation of the clubs and their owners, more effective fan involvement and the establishment of an Independent Regulator for football.

We will work in solidarity with fans of all clubs to try to see the FLR be fully implemented.

If you want to see and sign the petition please click here - https://www.change.org/p/sports-minister-for-england-sports-minister-to-look-into-the-ongoing-situation-between-the-efl-derby-county

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