The Athletic

Hello, I'm Mark Chapman, welcome to the Business of Sport podcast on The Athletic.

As usual, we're joined by the Athletics Matt Slater.

And coming up with the news that EFL side, Derby County is set to go into our

administration and face a point deduction.

We're joined by Paul Appleton, a leading insolvency practitioner with first-hand experience

in working with football clubs who enter administration to explain the process.

Then we're joined by leading business economist Mark Gregory,

who's written a book that outlines his vision as to how English football can break the cycle

of its professional clubs getting into severe financial difficulties.

So let's start with Paul Appleton on the pod,

a partner of Begbe's trainer, a leading corporate rescue and recovery practice. Paul is a chartered accountant and a licensed insolvency practitioner

who has worked directly with professional football clubs in England who have gone into

administration. Let's keep it very, very simple to start with, Paul.

What is administration?

Administration is a tool to do one of three things.

The first is to rescue the company as a going concern.

So the club is owned by a company.

So in football administrations, you are looking to rescue the company if you can. If you can't

rescue the company, which in most administrations outside of football, you can't do because the

debts are just too high, you then move on to the second purpose of administration, which is to

generate a better return for creditors than they would get in a liquidation. So, for example,

...