What stopped Middlesbrough becoming a Premier League club at the end of the 2018-19 season? Derby, apparently.
Not the six straight games they lost between March 9 and April 6. Not taking one point from a possible 21 at a crucial stage in the season. Not losing home and away to Nottingham Forest who finished ninth. Not losing at home to Bristol City (eighth), Sheffield Wednesday (12th) or Preston (14th).
No, it was all down to Derby, whose cheating of the EFL’s financial fair play rules — the ambition tax, as it should be known — meant that they claimed sixth place by one point from Middlesbrough, who came seventh, therefore missing out on the play-offs, which they no doubt would have won.
Middlesbrough just missed out on a place in the Championship play-offs to Derby in 2019
Derby County are on the brink of falling into liquidation within the next few days
Victory must be presumed if Middlesbrough’s case against them is to be worth anywhere near the £40million compensation widely reported. A failed play-off campaign accrues nowhere near that. Forbes do not breathlessly discuss the fortune from merely getting into the play-offs.
It is winning that is football’s equivalent of Willy Wonka’s golden ticket. For Derby to owe Middlesbrough any figure worth having, it is the Premier League they must have been denied, not the opportunity to slump forlornly on the Wembley pitch while another team gallivants with joy.
For Middlesbrough’s case to succeed, then, certain assumptions must be made. The first is that they would have done something over two legs that they hadn’t managed all season: namely beat Leeds. If Middlesbrough had taken Derby’s spot their play-off semi-final opponents would have been Leeds, who finished third, nine points ahead. And Middlesbrough’s results against Marcelo Bielsa’s side that season were a 0-0 draw at Elland Road, and 1-1 at home. So they didn’t lose, but nor did they win.
It is a leap of faith that they would have progressed in what is essentially a cup tie. The clubs who eliminated Middlesbrough from the domestic cups that season were Burton Albion and Newport County. Weakened teams, naturally, Middlesbrough made six changes for the Burton game, five for Newport, but we’re playing fantasy football here, remember. Everything counts, everything doesn’t. It’s all imagination.
So, having beaten Leeds — who, by the way, defeated Middlesbrough home and away the following season, 5-0 on aggregate — only Aston Villa stood between Middlesbrough and the Premier League. And it’s a good job these meetings are taking place in the realms of the unknown because here on earth when Villa played Middlesbrough that season they won 3-0, both home and away.
The league table, and results, suggest Villa were a much better team than Middlesbrough at the time. We can never know what might have happened in a third meeting, which will be Middlesbrough’s case; but we could make a calculated guess; certainly if the very future of Derby depends on it.
Leeds United defeated Middlesbrough home and away during the 2019-20 season
And it does. The club is looking at potential liquidation and any sale is being complicated by lawsuits from Middlesbrough and, incredibly, Wycombe Wanderers — the lucky losers of the pandemic. Wycombe also claim that their season, 2020-21, was the work of another club, and they would have maintained Championship status were it not for Derby’s cheating. This ignores their failure to win a match until October 31, or record more than two wins before December 29.
Equally, Wycombe only arrived in the Championship by an arbitrary calculation that defies all reason, the great beneficiaries of 3.7 points for a win.
In 2020, when the EFL curtailed the League One season due to the pandemic, they also decided to maintain promotion and relegation. But with no matches being played, they turned to the realms of fantasy. League positions would be settled on points per game. The total number of points for each club would be divided by the games they had played, and used to make a calculation across 46 matches.
Using PPG, Wycombe, who had a game in hand, jumped from eighth to third, based on 1.73 points per game. Yet their game in hand was away at top of the table Coventry, who were averaging 1.97 points per game. That made the imaginary Coventry versus Wycombe a 3.7-point match. Yet when Wycombe’s promotion rivals visited Coventry and played a real game with real footballers, they could only receive three points, maximum.
Along with Middlesbrough, Wycombe Wanderers are filing lawsuits against Derby
One might think, then, that in the circumstances Wycombe would consider themselves lucky to get a crack at the Championship and accept their fate — just as the teams they leapfrogged in 2020 accepted theirs. But no. Wycombe have a grand sense of entitlement and think they went down because Derby cheated, not because they were over-promoted by an EFL whim, so want paying out, too.
Interestingly, if League One was curtailed now and PPG enforced, Wycombe, who are top, would be overtaken by second-placed Wigan and fourth-placed Rotherham and demoted to the play-offs. Fascinating to hear their thoughts if that happened.
These lawsuits matter because, as specious as they may appear, if successful they could count as football debts, requiring priority repayment. Quantuma, Derby’s administrators, fear if that were the case, the value of the settlement would be almost as big as the entire value of the club.
No buyer is prepared to move until this is resolved. And without a saviour Derby could be just a week from liquidation. Where are the EFL in this? Incredibly, their main involvement is alleged to be a deal with Middlesbrough to stop Steve Gibson suing them over failure to regulate Derby efficiently. This may actually have paved the way for Middlesbrough to sue Derby instead.
Of course Middlesbrough and Wycombe are also emboldened in their mission to prove a football club is not responsible for its results or league position by the precedent set when Sheffield United sued West Ham.
Derby County are just days away from potential liquidation as they seek a new buyer
Lord Griffiths ruled that Sheffield United did not go down because they scored fewer goals away from home, or lost more away games than any other team in the Premier League in 2006-07, and they didn’t go down because they failed to
