ADDICKS FOCUS
Charlton takeover talk goes on and on while fans wait for news...
IF YOU looked at Charlton Athletic’s start to the season, it would be perfectly reasonable to make the assumption that all is well at The Valley.
A last-gasp 2-1 defeat at promotion favourites Sunderland on the season’s opening day was a creditable performance.
Victory against Shrewsbury by the same score last weekend, courtesy of Karlan AhearneGrant’s late winner, helped Lee Bowyer’s Addicks bag their first three points.
However, if you scratch below the surface, a true picture of the situation in SE7 quickly begins to emerge.
In both opening games the Addicks have failed to name a full bench, with the vast majority of substitutes being academy players. Despite being talented individuals, they cannot be consistently relied upon by a side who should be seeking promotion.
Whilst Charlton were unlucky with injuries during pre-season, the real reason why the club have started the campaign with such a depleted squad lies in the boardroom.
Owner Roland Duchatelet has been locked in negoing tiaing tions to sell the club throughout the summer and has therefore shied away from providing much-needed investment into the first team squad.
Headlines
Duchatelet’s ownership hit the headlines during the 2016/17 season when Charlton fans, who were watching their side battle to stay in the Championship, began to organise a series of large-scale protests against the club’s hierarchy.
Frustration over the regular appointment of inexperienced and unproven managers and the emergence of a growing fracture in relations between supporters and the board led to Charlton fans designing a number of creative protests, which quickly grabbed the media’s attention.
However, with the Addicks now plying their trade in League One, significantly less media attention has been devoted to events in Unfortunately, since the turn of the year the situation at the club has deteriorated. The news that Duchatelet was looking to step aside was quickly followed by the departure of chief executive Katrien Meire, who was, admittedly, highly unpopular with fans, chief financial officer David Joyes and manager Karl Robinson, who left for Oxford United. All of them have not been properly replaced. Indeed, Bowyer is now into his fifth month as ‘caretaker’ manager. When last season ended there was a real feeling of optimism among Charlton fans that a takeover would be completed over the summer. Members of an Australian consortium, believed to be close to buying the club, were pictured in the directors’ box with Charlton scarves draped around their necks at the club’s final home game of the campaign.
Duchatelet’s tenure looked to be finally over… or so we thought.
Tenure
We are now three months down the line and the club is still in the hands of the Belgian tycoon.
Apart from a brief article on the club’s website, stating that the current ownership “is expecting a takeover of the club to be completed” and the minutes of a meeting between a fans’ forum and one of Duchatelet’s representatives, supporters have been left in the dark about how close to a takeover the club actually is.
Whilst the takeover saga has dragged on, it appears Duchatelet’s cost-cutting measures have begun to bite. A recent article in The Independent claimed that academy players are no longer given bottled water at the trainSE7. ground or allowed a free breakfast, and that Wi-Fi and electricity usage have become rationed.
It is clear that a takeover has to happen if the club is going to progress in the long term. Too many bridges have been burned between the ownership and the fan base for any sense of unity and togetherness to be rebuilt under the current hierarchy.
The fact there were only a little over 9,000 fans at The Valley last weekend demonstrates how widespread disenfranchisement has become among supporters.
Attendances have dropped significantly over the last two seasons as fans who once threw inflatable beach balls and miniature rubber pigs onto the pitch in protest at Duchatelet’s ownership have decided to boycott attending matches entirely.
Plenty of my Charlton-supporting friends have vowed not to return to The Valley until there is a change of ownership and, from a personal perspective, I have been struck by the sense of apathy that I now feel towards the club under the current regime.
If the elusive takeover is completed soon then a newly enthused support base, coupled with a few January signings, could well trigger a push for promotion this season.
However, whilst promotion would be fantastic, all I really want is for any potential new owners to embrace Charlton’s proud identity and make being a supporter of the club a special
experience once again.