Derby County’s potential buyers have decided to walk away from the takeover, after finding out that the club owes in excess of £60 million. That includes £8 million to be paid to former boss Philip Cocu and his assistants, who were discarded in November.
The prospect of selling the club for £1 has been mooted, and even in that situation, it makes little sense because the net result will be accumulation of liabilities. The club owes the HMRC bill north of £20m, as well as the £2.3m compensation payment to former captain Richard Keogh and a loan of £17.5m plus rolling interest with MSD Holdings, which is guaranteed against Pride Park.
According to a source of the Daily Mail, there have been talks of liquidation, which go as follows:
‘An option is that Derby go into administration to remove part of their debt. However, only non-football debt is wiped off by doing so, and that is less than £10m, which isn’t enough.
‘If he is going to sell the club, Mel Morris needs to give it away for nothing and agree to cover half of the debt. At the present time, because of the uncertainty over the points deduction, it looks unsellable.
‘To pay, in effect, £60m for Derby, it makes no business sense at all, especially as there are plenty of other clubs for sale right now. Someone could be tempted if you thought the squad needed one or two additions and could challenge for promotion to the Premier League, like what happened at Aston Villa.
‘But Derby are in a mess, on and off the pitch. If Mel Morris is unable to find the right buyer, then we could be looking at the biggest liquidation in the history of British football.’
