Roland is the only one who comes out of it with any credit. Murray doesn't seem to be implicated in any of the deceit. Our choice was between: Roland, Administration,or A move away from the Valley. At the time I would have taken Roland, administration would have involved probably another relegation, and an uncertain future. Roland's mistake has been to trust his own deeply-flawed judgement, particularly on recruitment, his motives look a bit better after reading this. I said at the time we were heading for administration, hardly anyone agreed with me. I had no idea the degree of duplicity which was going on behind the scenes though. Jiminez and Cash deserve to get taken to the cleaners.
A) Duchatelet B) Administration C) Eviction A no-brainer really. Looks like I owe a certain Belgian businessman an apology. And thanks for still having a home to play at.
We all know the FA is not fit for purpose. And I'm not saying Duchatelet is suddenly not responsible for any of the things he has done to alienate fans and bring CAFC down to where it is now. Our owner is as guilty of that as he ever was. But it now seems he is the only reason we still have a home stadium, two thirds empty or not. And without him, we could be moaning about the weakness of a squad playing non-league football, not 3rd tier.
'Administration' often gets brought up as an "end of the world" scenario, but there are Clubs that came out of it stronger, as their football success proves.
Roland may be squeaky-clean compared to the two low-life liars, but he's still an idiot when it comes to football. He bought Charlton because he thought he knew how to gain success, but his theories have been shown to be pure fantasy, as he's tacitly admitted by changing course. The exception being that we still have the same CEO. Shame he, and we, have had to find out the hard way, instead of listening to wiser heads.
It doesn't seem that Muzza has had much to say, either to the liars, or to Roland. Only to tell the fans that we wouldn't have to sell off our young players to the first bidder any more.
After the way Leicester City used it, administration is now a much less desirable 'least worst option' than it used to be in my opinion. And I would imagine the spectre of the Valley being sold for non-football use would be more likely if the Club was insolvent. I'll admit I am no expert on this, but when it comes to the crunch I would rather the Club exhausts every viable option rather than going into administration. I don't like Duchatelet, but if we could have that time (late 2013 - early 2014) over again, I would still prefer him to buy rather than face bankruptcy and the beginning of winding up proceedings.
Not for me - Duchatelet had the resources to change 'Charlton Groundhog Day', but all he did was amplify it.
Crazy to think that nearly 1/4 of the teams in the premiership have been in administration at some point over the last 15 years. I’m sounding like SR. I’ll stop.
Yet our unambitious scare mongering fans like to use it as a death card. I know a Red Bull type takeover would p1ss off many fans, but I'd take it over the destruction of stagnation.
It may be controversial, but I wouldn’t be adverse to that type of takeover. More than anything I want a successful team and to get to the next level we would have to sell our soul a little bit.
A 'Red Bull' type take-over could mean a couple of things; A) A billionaire or a huge corporation taking over and pouring obscene millions into the Club (as with Manchester City) in order to buy success. B) As option A, but with the new owners also changing the Club's identity - name, colours etc - as Red Bull would do. Option A would spoil Charlton Athletic in my view, and any promotions or trophies won would mean nothing. I would have serious problems with that - and with the new generation of glory-hunting 'fans' who would follow. However I'm not sure if it would actually make me quit being a Charlton fan myself. Option B is very unlikely I gather, as I believe we have laws to protect our Clubs from being crudely 'franchised' in the Red Bull fashion. But if it did happen, in my view the franchise would no longer be Charlton Athletic at all, and it would have no more right to claim our history and traditions as MK Dons have of claiming they won the FA Cup in 1988. For me it would be time to go back to the beginning. Time for AFC Charlton.
Having beentoPalace recently, and seen them introduced as The Pride of South London to a packed Selhurst Park, I want ambitious owners above all else.
Without doing any in depth research - has there ever been a successful takeover in recent years, where consolidation was the goal?
Not at all, we would be competing with many teams that are in that position these days. You can't seriously compete in the big leagues with how we've been run - Predictable Charlton is getting boring.
