Mel Morris makes Derby County 'bankrolling' revelation as he brands EFL process 'fatally broken'

Former Derby County owner Mel Morris says the EFL's process for selling a football club "is fatally broken" and that prospective buyers should require a licence before any deal can be discussed.

In an interview with Jimmy's Jobs of the Future podcast, Morris discussed the highs and lows of his reign at Pride Park, which ended with him putting the club into administration in 2021.

Morris dreamed of taking Derby to the Premier League when he took over in 2015 and was close to achieving that aim in 2019 when Frank Lampard's team reached Wembley but lost to Aston Villa.

But the financial demands eventually proved too much for Morris, who had spent big money on trying to lead Derby back to the top table of English football.

Administrators, Quantuma, were called in to try to find a buyer, which led to Derby fan and local businessman David Clowes coming to the rescue in July 2022.

Clowes was lauded as a hero for his intervention, which came after American businessman Chris Kirchner's proposed move to buy Derby fell apart due to a lack of funds.

Looking back at his time in charge of Derby, host Jimmy McLoughlin asked Morris whether he felt he needed to apologise to the fans who were put through the mill for more than a year.

And he said: "Well, I said many times over that I'm sorry for how it ended. No question mark about that.

"I know the fans felt that, but they probably felt more nervousness at the end, all right, not realising the fact that I was bankrolling a lot of what was happening during the administration.

"I didn't probably have quite the sort of disaster view of what was going to happen. Of course, everyone got involved, MPs and all sorts, didn't help.

"And I still say that the big part of this is the EFL's process of being able to sell a football club is broken, it's fatally broken.

"What I mean by that is, if they want to do something to help clubs find owners, they should, before someone is able to even make an offer on a football club, they should actually validate them and certify them, knowing that they have funds and will be accepted as an owner to a particular level of funding.

"They should charge that individual £50,000 or £100,000 to get a licence, and the licence would say you've been approved by the EFL to this budget, and you can get a deal done in a week.

"These clubs that are teetering on the edge would be able to find things so much easier and faster as opposed to wasting time meeting someone, checking they've got funds, submitting the paperwork to the EFL, waiting four, five, six weeks, don't like it, want more details. That's disastrous."