Peter Varney: Addicks owner will come to regret Chris Powell sacking Tuesday, 18 March 2014 Exclusive by Richard Cawley CHARLTON owner Roland Duchatelet has been told he will live to regret sacking Chris Powell. That is the message from the clubâs former chief executive and executive vice chairman Peter Varney - who played the pivotal role in the Valley favourite moving into the hotseat in January 2011. It was Varney who advised the then board to appoint Powell and Varney himself returned to the club to work closely alongside the new boss to restructure the football side and manage player transfers and recruitment. The rest is history. Initially it was a struggle for the ex-England international but he revamped the squad at the start of the 2011-12 season and they broke a number of club records on their way to the League One title. And the Addicks comfortably survived their first campaign back in the Championship. But Duchatelet axed Powell just a day after Charltonâs dreams of an FA Cup semi-final at Wembley were dashed by Sheffield United at Bramall Lane. Varney - a key figure during Charltonâs Premier League heydays - was part of the board when previous owners Tony Jimenez and Michael Slater were looking for a successor to Phil Parkinson. âI had worked closely with Chris over many years at Charlton and we were friendsâ said Varney. âI always thought he was going to be a manager. He was highly regarded at Leicester City. I spoke to Sven-Goran Eriksson and he gave him a glowing reference. Initially Leicester indicated they wanted compensation - that might have been a problem - but Sven managed to get that changed. The board interviewed Chris and he made such an impression he got the job immediately after his formal interview. âIn football it is often just another club to people - you get sacked and you move on. But I can still remember when I first phoned Chris and asked how he fancied becoming the Charlton manager. His first words were âYou know I love the place and I would walk down to London for that jobâ. âThe first six months were difficult, because there were so many players going out of contract. There were people on Premier League wages like Jose Semedo and Thierry Racon. They were all told we wouldnât be able to offer similar contracts and they wouldnât be renewed which resulted in a tailing off in the performances of the team. âI told Chris when he started it was going to be a bumpy few months. It was a case of making sure we stayed in the division. It was a double job. He had to deal with what he had, knowing that in the summer he had to dismantle the squad and reconstruct it. âChris is very much respected by players and people in football but he also has got an edge to him. He is a very good coach and organiser and a fantastic man manager. âHe got us promoted to the Championship and then probably needed a little more investment but the previous regime couldnât provide that. He had to go with what heâd got, save for the addition of Lawrie Wilson. âIf you take this season we have been competitive again despite our wage budget and on Boxing Day I watched us beat a decent Brighton side 3-2 and thought we will be ok. But if subsequently you take three key players out of the side like Yann Kermorgant, Ben Alnwick and Dale Stephens and then donât replace them - other than foreign loans - you are going to struggle. âIt would be the same for any Championship team if they did that. You have to understand it is not just about the players who leave but the effect it has on other senior players and particularly those players being allowed to go out of contract. It strikes at the heart of team morale. âPart of the issue with Chris was he was being told that not only could he not replace them with the players he wanted - but he was under pressure to pick the loan players sent over. But Chris will always choose what he believes to be his best starting 11. âI went to Bramall Lane and it was a poor performance but if you add just Kermorgant and Stephens to the team that day I believe it would all have been very differentâ Powell revealed recently to the South London Press that he had agreed the financial terms on a new contract to replace the one that expired in the summer. But that there was still an agreement to be reached on football matters. âThatâs very unusual,â said Varney. âNormally salary and bonuses are the stumbling block on new contracts. It is very rare that you agree the finances and then the contract falls down because you donât agree the football strategy with the board. âThere is a lot of nonsense spoken that he just got the job because he is a top class man. Make no mistake he is a top-class manager - he has proved that in the last two years and to some extent this season, by beating Brighton and QPR, with a team that he had to cobble together with youngsters, out-of-contract players and loans. Everyone will point to the Sheffield United cup match but that was to an extent because the whole situation had deteriorated. âI have been involved at Charlton with three promotions - two to the Premier League and one from League One - and behind the scenes it has to be very stable and organised. You have to have a good atmosphere. It is a vital ingredient to how you achieve success. Once there is tension, disagreement and pressure, things start to go wrong generally. Players are not stupid. If your best ones are fit and you are not picking them, do you think they are not working it out?â And Varney is convinced that Powell - who had been the eighth longest-serving boss in the top four divisions - will bounce back. âI havenât changed my view on Chris one little bit,â he said. âIf youâd ask me for one or two people in football that I believe will be successful in football management he is right up there. Phil Parkinson was a nice man but the bottom line is that performances were not good enough, supporters were getting disillusioned and it didnât look like we were going back to the Championship. The whole place needed a lift. Chris ticked all the boxes. He was a deep thinker about football and when he came back it lifted the fans. âWhen you look at the wages paid out last season, that team shouldnât have finished ninth. He will go on and be successful. I think Charlton will look back and regret this decision massively. âI worked with him every day when he rebuilt the squad in the summer of 2011. I always arranged the first part of the signing process as the player meeting Chris. Chris made you feel different.â So how does Varney - who has been in the game for decades - feel the Duchatelet model of owning multiple clubs will work out for the South London club he still supports? So how does Varney - who has been in the game for decades - feel the Duchatelet model of owning multiple clubs will work out for the South London club he still supports? âI fear that the interest of his expanded football family will always outweight the interest of the individual team,â he said. âThe key members of the family will get the biggest slice of the cake. If youâre a Champions League team it has to be different to one that might be in League One - God forbid. âWhen you own one club your whole focus is on that one club and making sure it is successful. When you own a number of clubs you have disparate objectives and you have to ensure the whole family works and as I understand the Duchatelet model it has to be profitable overall. âIn my view it waters down the passion if you have got half a dozen football clubs to look after and I certainly hope we never become just a feeder club. "Communication with supporters is vital and if they don't know what the future plan is they can only guess and that breeds discontent and suspicion and worse than that people will vote with their feet.â Vol's Note To Editor: Peter Varney once described Les Reed as "100% a Premiership manager" and went on "Les is our manager long term, and we will support him in the transfer market".
Note: Varney tried to slander TJ and MS about potentially wanting to sell the ground, though he tried to move the club in to Kent in the early 00's. But shhh, that's a secret. And no G21 member tried to stop him then despite being ITK....
To be fair to Murray, he was never keen on the idea. I do like Reg, and he did an awful lot for the club whilst employed and unemployed, but the whole whiter than white image is inaccurate.
Varney has tarnished his reputation with this interview, which offers a very one sided and skewed view of things to put it politely. I particularly liked the "we have been competitive this season" Err....we were bottom when Powell was sacked and the lowest scorers in all four divisions.
Les Reed Why oh why were Racon and Semedo on Premiership wages? We signed them after relegation and they'd never played in this country
