Derby will survive, but will the EFL & others finally learn lessons this time?

Derby County are under new ownership, marking the end of another protracted financial crisis in the EFL. But can or will lessons be learned?

A lengthy story finally came to an end, at the end of last week. Derby County have been saved after Clowe Developments, a Derbyshire-based company, stepped in to rescue the club from the ongoing peril of administration, following the almost entirely predictable collapse of apparent tyre-kicker Chris Kirchner’s bid for the club. It’s a point to take a huge exhalation and to look forward to the start of a new season in slightly reduced circumstances, but with a huge weight having been lifted from the club’s shoulders.

And what a cast this story had. There was the hero-turned villain in the form of former owner Mel Morris; two former England captains, Frank Lampard and Wayne Rooney; Marcelo Bielsa’s Leeds United team; the EFL; and, it occasionally felt, the entire rest of the Championship. There were failed bids from a Sheikh and… whatever on earth an Erik Alonso is. Even the team of free transfers that they had to start 2021/22 with, featuring Ravel Morrison, Sam Baldock and Phil Jagielka, had a hint of the ‘Inglourious Basterds’ about it.

It had been two and half weeks since the end of the Kirchner bid and things were starting to look somewhat desperate, when the Clowes news broke. Kirchner’s attempts to buy the club had, frankly, achieved no more than earning him some cheap publicity while wasting everybody else’s time. The writing was on the wall for that attempt as soon as stories started to emerge of delays with transferring the money required from the USA to England to tie it all up.

To anybody with an iota of knowledge about how finance works, this was obvious rot. In the 21st century, the financial world is completely dependent on electronic payments is easier than ever, even for very vast amounts, and although extra checks are required for various security purposes, including money laundering, it is simply not the case that it is a particularly arduous task to transfer large sums of money business to business in the 21st century.

It never felt as though the case there was a hiccup with this deal – certainly not the sort of hiccup that couldn’t be resolved comfortably within 24 hours – would be more about banking procedures than it would be about this money not actually being there in the first place. There remains no documentary evidence that it ever was, and his bid withdrew…