Our win at Wembley was fantastic and, as I mentioned, a credit to all involved. Following the win, I was filled with hope as one of the parties interested in buying the club wanted to move forward quickly to complete the purchase of the club. They want to solve the issue of the ex-directors loans first, which I can understand but may take time. In this respect I would like to thank Richard Murray, Sir Maurice Hatter, David White and David Hughes for their cooperation during this process. The delay is frustrating, because the fact Charlton are now back in the Championship should increase our chances of being sold and now, with the summer transfer window opening, is the right time to acquire a club. The past few years, I have continued to pay everything at the club, despite the way some of our staff members, their family, my friends, my family and myself have been treated by individuals who claim they act in the best interest of the club. I do not intend to do otherwise until the club has been sold. However, I want to bring the yearly losses to a more reasonable level. Operating on a small budget will limit our chances of promotion to the Premier League, which are already obstructed by the large, unsustainable, overspending by some other clubs in the division. Does it mean we have no chance? No. Does it mean we will be relegated? Not at all. We have good players, good staff and the fans seem to be united behind the team again. Nevertheless, it is unlikely we will win as many games as we did in League One, where we had one of the largest wage budgets and we will need everyone behind the team as you were this season. Once again there have been some brilliant players to come through our academy this season and we will continue to bring players through next year. Our staff have already begun preparations for additions to our squad for next season and we have some good players at the club already as we look to build on last season. The club first spoke to Lee Bowyer about a contract extension earlier in the season. There is a trigger in his contract for a contract extension, which we exercised in May, and he needs to agree to this for his contract to be extended as per the current agreement. He has done a fantastic job and therefore talks about improving Lee’s contract are scheduled for next week. Both the club and Lee want him to be the Charlton Athletic manager next season. Stability is essential, even if the club gets sold soon. I have been trying to sell the club for nearly two years now. Many English football clubs are for sale and many of those have been for a long time. The main reason is that nearly all Championship club owners face huge yearly losses. It is unclear how long this can continue, with club’s losing tens of millions of pounds each year. It has become unaffordable for nearly anyone to own a football club in the Championship meaning it is not easy to find a suitable buyer. For example, it is debatable whether the first candidate for buying the club, who was pushed, with the very best intentions, by ex-CEO Peter Varney, ex-director Derek Chappell and Rick Everitt (VOV from 29 12 15), the current owner of Ebbsfleet football club, would have been the right fit for Charlton. A specific issue in relation to the sale of Charlton is that while a club in London is very attractive, the value of land and buildings is high because the stadium and the training ground are located in London. This wouldn’t be a problem for rich enough acquirors but we have had quite a few interested parties who wanted to buy the club while renting the stadium and the training ground. Being back in the Championship will be of help to a takeover because it is one step less to the ultimate goal: getting into the Premier League. In the meantime owner and fans are stuck together. Please make the best of it. Let’s try to win games and enjoy those moments at The Valley.
Same old, same old. Rick Everitt’s ego will have exploded reading that. Duchatelet is playing straight into his hands.
Whoever translated this into English did a very slick job. They have made Duchatelet sound much more coherent and a lot less deluded than he has ever sounded before. However, since I'n not inclined to believe one word he says however it's dressed up, it makes no difference to me.
Just as a point of interest however, this section of the statement caught my attention... The club first spoke to Lee Bowyer about a contract extension earlier in the season. There is a trigger in his contract for a contract extension, which we exercised in May, and he needs to agree to this for his contract to be extended as per the current agreement. He has done a fantastic job and therefore talks about improving Lee’s contract are scheduled for next week... To me this reads as though Lee Bowyer is expected by Duchatelet to agree to an extension of his current contract (unaltered and unimproved) before RD will sit down with him and negotiate improvements. So if the two of them cannot agree on any improvements, Bowyer will already have committed himself to this 'extension' of his contract as it stood last season, which RD can then hold him to. However, the bit about what Bowyer "needs to agree" might just refer to the old contract terms as a choice for LB, NOT a pre-condition of sitting down next week to discuss improvements. On second thoughts, maybe this translation is not overly polished. There's still plenty of room for multiple interpretations.
In a nutshell, RD is saying the budget will be small but the team should still be too good to get relegated. So please make the best of it. More expectation lowering, unambitious mumblings from the miserly master of mediocrity. Just sign Bowyer up you boring old scrote and let him get on with it.
God knows what the original statement said if the version published is AFTER the PR people had worked on it.
yes, it's actually readable so it's been filtered, but the intent is still complete and utter garbage.
Hasn't de Turkey been adamant at the Fans Forum that the directors' loans are not a problem? Surely the Douche would be apoplectic to find out that one of his trusted employees had been peddling porkies?
On CL they printed some of the notes from previous fans forum meetings where he stated this was the case - there was no issue with the directors loans. He also recently stated that the price was agreed, and would not change if we achieved promotion. So all this new stuffis coming from elsewhere…..or we are being spun another set of yarns.
Basically, you can't take anything at face value that comes from the owner or his staff. You always have to read between the lines, and the underlying message is "It's not my fault. I am the perfect owner. The rules are wrong, it's Bowyer's fault his contract has run out, I know better than Everitt and Varney what is good for Charlton."
For something that is so relatively straightforward, this whole thing stinks. Two years to sell a football club, I think not.
I suspect a bit of collusion between them, certainly between Millwall and Oz. The idea, now seemingly dropped, of blaming the ex-directors is nauseating; Millwall wouldn't have thought it up on his own. Maybe they thought they could push through the sale this way, but now in effect it's back to square one, ie Roland here ad infinitum.
People are speculating on social media that Millwall is jockeying for a position at the club under Aussie. I don’t believe a word of it myself. There would be the huge credibility issue for starters. That’s before you get on to the notoriously thin skin and the unpopularity...
