I don't mind some decent investment, but a 'Red Bull' type takeover would mean unlimited funding. When it comes to the Premier League, as a neutral football fan I have no respect for anything that Chelsea or Manchester City have 'achieved' in recent years. It's all bought. They did not have to earn any of it. For me, a CAFC pumped up by that kind of money would no longer be worthy of respect either. I would be ashamed of it to be honest. But I fully acknowledge other fans will have different views.
Whether we like it or not Clubs have been buying success since the beginning. It may have got out of hand, but money rules, and more and more Clubs have it...Sadly its become a case of join in or get left behind. Happy to see with the replies here, that 'put up with your lot' isn't for everyone.
Any club without ambition is like a car without petrol. It will always be in the DNA of *normal* football fans to want success for their club. A club of our size and history should be in the Championship - the last 3/4 years have been an affront. What has become clear today is that so badly does Murray want his dough back, he has risked the actual survival of the club by introducing not one but two totally not fit and not proper owners. And Murray publicly defended both Tony Jiminez & Roland Duchatelet
It’s asks further questions as to why he purchased Charlton. It was claimed at the time of his arrival that he said he wasn’t concerned by wins or losses. So then we assume it’s the land he’s after - but this contradicts that theory. Where does he see his return?
It's cost him a bit to find out but it seems he was determined to find out whether his mad network experiment could work.
Wasn't Duchatelet engrossed in his 'network' experiment at the time? He thought he was creating something new presumably - success for Standard Liege by the exchange of players with lesser Clubs, with the hoped-for side effect that those lesser Clubs might perhaps also benefit from the process. It's one possibility I suppose. In truth nobody knows what he thinks or why he does what he does.
Yes, Duchatelet introduced a Lidl’s version of the Moneyball system - with Thomas Driesen and Karel Fraeye unearthing gems like Thuram and Koc.
Ideally I would have loved the Paul Elliott rumour to have come to fruition, but failing that I want to see on-field success as a priority. No THE priority.
For me, football must be more than buying success. The top 6 in the Premier League is of no interest at all to me anymore and has not been for years, except when somebody gatecrashes the party. What Leicester City did three seasons ago was like a miracle, and what Burnley have achieved so far this season is incredible. Yes, of course Leicester and Burnley have huge wealth at their disposal compared to us or pretty much anybody else outside the top division, but it is all relative. Compared to Manchester City, Chelsea, United and Arsenal etc. the other Clubs in the Prem should never even get a look in. By their financial might alone the top 5 or 6 should be 20 points clear of the also-rans by January of every season. But if they were, the top league in English football would be even duller than Formula 1. Football needs the romance of the underdog winning through against the odds, by shrewd management, great team spirit and a big slice of luck most times as well. Winning a promotion or winning a trophy has to mean something - it has to be earned, not bought. Even if Charlton somehow end up Champions of League One this season, we will only have done what, as one of the four or five 'big fish' in this small pond, we are supposed to do. Obviously winning the league would make me happy, but not particularly proud - unless maybe we totally ran away with it and topped 100 points, which we are clearly not going to do now. Shrewsbury Town on the other hand have had a fantastic season compared to the resources they have available, and if I were a Shrews fan my chest would be bursting with pride at even the chance of promotion to the Championship. Winning holds little reason for pride when you are expected to win. And if our future holds an owner of unlimited wealth who simply pours money into the Club as a vanity project, there would be no glory in anything that follows as far as I am concerned. I would appear to be in a small minority holding this view, if the fans of Chelsea and Manchester City are any yardstick. They seem to be universally overjoyed at being the wealthiest of the wealthy in the Plutocracy of top flight football. The ability of their Clubs to buy success seems to bring them unlimited pleasure. But in my eyes they have lost something that all the money in the world cannot buy them. Apologies - this is all off-topic. I don't like being confronted with the truth about our former owners being crooks, and the whole never-ending saga of sleaze, corruption and spivs erodes my passion for football sometimes, and makes me wonder if it is worth even being a fan. Money is God in Football now - a message reinforced every weekend by the Prem-obsessed media and their unending worship of obscenely rich celebrity players. I know in some ways it was ever thus. But today it is so much in the face of fans who struggle to make ends meet in life, that it has gone too far.
I agree with you Lardi, but running a football club is a loss-making business in most cases. It certainly has been at Charlton ever since Curbs stepped down, and the only people prepared to take on the challenge are often foreign owners who are loaded.
I can imagine that the recent events exposing Jiminez and co will strengthen their silly comments once we have new owners. Roland this, Roland that. If only we still had him. Blah f****** blah.
