And so once again the poisonous chalice baton which is Charlton Athletic changes hands, bringing to end a bizarre period of club ownership.
The 'Cash / Jimenez / Slater / Murray / whoever else’ period will ultimately go down as one that delivered a number of positive improvements to the club, but this was negated by a number of impacts that are less visibly seen. Most striking of all though is the overriding question of
‘why the hell did they not go about things differently?’
Everything was going so bloody well. The strategy and results were absolutely spot on. A brilliant choice of manager was brought on board, a sizeable but sensible investment to completely overhaul the playing squad was undertaken and showing clear results. On the field a momentum was building for the first time in countless years. Away from the first team, a clear remit to enhance the academy was targeted and was similarly breeding results, along with visible ground improvements to the electronic screen.
Everything was following the A plan. And then something went wrong, very wrong. At the time of promotion Kevin Cash supposedly withdrew his funding. Whatever the truth of why, whether it be a fall out with Jimenez or complications in a long-term plan to relocate to the Peninsula, none of us really know. But without the funding plan, everything else began to unravel.
The ownership / funding secrecy had been a source of mystery since their very first day in charge. ***Takeover completed (owners unknown, Slater & Jimenez fronting)*** was our headline on here. It was clear from day one that the main investment into the ‘Charlton project’ was not coming from the two named leaders. A convoluted registration structure involving the Cayman Islands and Luxembourg and the guarded approach added to suspicion.
Why the secrecy?
What were they hiding / wanting to hide?
It soon emerged that Slater, a PR-savvy lawyer, was going to be the only talker amongst the group. Local and national press were told they will never get a word out of Jimenez, nor were we to later learn would supporters. The alleged owner of a football club had no interest in talking to its supporters.
And though things were going well on the pitch, a lot away from it simply did not make sense. The lead two’s attendance at The Valley was always mixed, away from the Valley it was extremely rare, and neither bothered to travel to Carlisle to see the club promoted, the biggest day in the club’s history for years. At the time that just never seemed right to me.
Whilst the playing budget seemed increasingly tightened, expensive executives on a part-time basis were brought in. A huge wave of long-serving staff were forced out, or facing disciplinary proceedings. Slater disappeared from the public scene, rejecting speaking invites with supporter groups to ‘spend more time with his family’ whilst in the next breath grappling with Spanish police on a Man City jolly.
This period could so easily have been an amazing period had the momentum built by the League One winning squad continued to be backed for another 12-24 months.
This period could have been a very good period had they just gone about things a different way, been more open, honest and engaging and worked to get the supporters fully onside. We saw during the Murray / Curbs period just how much momentum can be built when everyone is onside.
Why did Jimenez take the approach to completely alienate himself from the fans, the press, the club’s own communications team, yet finish his days churning out publicity-driving blogs for a US news group ?
Why did Kevin Cash so want his involvement to be maintained unofficially ?
Why did Slater continue to try to pull the wool over people’s eyes with carefully worded outputs, and acting as if it was his own funds he was driving into the club every month ?
When it was clear that the only reason they were here was because they genuinely believed they could make money, then to leave it still alive and functioning is indeed a relief.
Are they leaving in credit or deficit ?
That’s purely for the individual interpretation to decide as there is no clear right or wrong answer. On paper we are in a league higher., that cannot be disputed by anyone, and in a better position to push on further. But to some the warmth, pull and soul of the club has died a little over the last few years and a slightly bitter taste lingers from their involvement.
And that might take a little while longer to rebuild.
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constant referrals to baton passing. And i thought we were Baton Holdings PLC
joking aside...the name indicates it was only ever a temporary "leg" by the outgoing incumbents...lets hope it was a clean change, no drops and the new relay man is a keeper
As regards the soul of the club dying - yes it's been diluted by them (and, indeed, the previous goings on after AC left) but not dead - you only have to think back to the Selhurst years to know that it will take a lot to kill the soul of CAFC.
As regards why didn't they do things differently? I suspect we'll only find out in dribs and drabs - was it simply a case of someone getting their sums wrong (costing more money in the Championship than was expected) or was there more to it? I suspect only a couple of readers of this forum know the complete picture and they would be forgiven for not divulging.
We are where we are and, like anything in life, we wish maybe things had worked out different. But we've now got a fresh start with a 3 point advantage on the immediate goal of securing Championship football next year - I'm happy to take that for now and forget about the past.
I think there is a pretty simple explanation to what went wrong - KC has no interest in football, only money. Once it became clear that millions were needed just to break even in the Championship, when originally he had been told that would not be necessary, he pulled the plug. Why the discrepancy compared with the original plan, we will probably never know, but clearly KC felt he'd been sold a pup and wanted no more to do with it/us. None of them will have made any money out of this ownership, so as you say, we can only be grateful they have managed to sell us on still in one piece...
However, most modern businesses know that relating to their customers is important. In our Premiership days, we were utterly spoilt by an open and honest board and an open honest manager. However, it felt as though we were just being kept in the dark. It would have been better if we had known there was bad news rather than it coming to light bit by bit.
Coupled with this, the turmoil with the non-playing staff left a nasty taste. I fully accept owners have the right to bring in their own team. I can accept that employees who might great fans may not be great employees but something was just not right to say the least as non-playing staff left at regular intervals.
I suspect that many fans around the country are equally unhappy with their current owners. This is caused by a mixture of the people owning the clubs, the crazy finances of football and fans who always want more now.
My hope is that the new owner acts with integrity, honesty and does his best. Then, most will accept what goes on. But, above all, speak to the customers.
The suspected Cash withdrawal of funding seemed to happen at the same time as the les Bordes fiasco between Jiminez and Wise and I am wondering if Cash was also involved with funding this and subsequently fell out with Jimenez and told him to poke his football club as well.
However, I clearly remember Murray telling us fans that we'd break even in The Championship.
But when we got there we were losing £7m per year.
What I mean by this is that they have added value to our club. If the new owners retain the best players and securing better replacements to the ones. allowed to run out of contract this summer then we will be at the right end of the Championship in just 12 months. They didn't sell Stephens when a Premier League club came looking and they have left the club with all the top u-24 players on long term deals (except Stephens).
If the new owners repeat this performance then we will be back inside the top 25 clubs in the country but it is a big ask! This is not Championship manager and you can imagine the queue of agents offering Carlos kickaball now that it appears we have a few quid.
As to why the club wasn't run differently, there is plenty of independent information out there about Jimenez and, to a lesser extent, Slater. The judge in the Wise case is scathing about Jimenez.
TJ was quite happy to sell Stephens, but got too greedy and believed he knew better than the people around him. He was wrong.
According to Angel dust the sale to Josh Harris was partially stuffed up by the release of information to the SLP. The poor relations with Varney meant that alternative sale was never going to happen.
We are left with sale to Duchalet, who strikes me as a less reactionary Belgium version of Ken Bates. I am glad the club is not going into imminent administration. It will need to be proved to me that Duchalet will ultimately any good for the club. Duchalet involvement with his other clubs does not look good.
The arrival of Astrit Ajdarevic, who appears to be a slow left midfield player does not fill me with much enthusiasm.
If Jimensz would have left us with a decent owner like Josh Harris, I would be feeling much happier. I would also prefer Peter Varney's involvement but it has been pointed out, PV didn't push forward the sale although we don't know the schenigians that went on both sides. It feels as though TJ & MS have sold the club to Duchelat because it is not Peter Varney and against the best interests of Charlton Athletic.
Not feeling elated at the take over.
We are 19th in the league and there is a blinding opportunity to improve the squad over the summer... so will someone please explain the downside?!
And in response to Airman, they didn't sell any top players except Jenkinson at the start to help fund the new squad.
Of course we don't know who might be signed over the next 8 months but no-one has bought CAFC to piss about at the bottom of the table.
No major work on the pitch has been completed since 1996/97. The pitch would have been under pressure and need investment to maintain it, that's why. Without investment, equipment to cover, work and protect the pitch it will deteriorate. The pitch is currently in an embarrassing state. It is Sunday league football level. It has significantly deteriorated over the last 3 seasons. The last 2 seasons have been particularly terrible.
Hamer,Alnwick, Wiggins, Evina, Cort, Dervite, Morrison, Wood, Green, Cook,Hollands, Gower, Jackson, Stephens, Kermy, Pritchard are all out of contract that is most of the squad.
Furthermore, it appears that more and more clubs have been taken over by owners who have little care for tradition and their customers and it may just be that it is what will become a standard of governance that mirrors the lack of integrity we have seen as commonplace in public life!
If you look at last summer's changes in the squad, some players were renewed, some were made no offer and some were offered reduced terms. I am not going to name names but will suggest that at least five of the list you name will not be made an offer. That is what I meant when I suggested we need to kick on over the summer and aim for a decent finish in 2014/15.
If (and it is a big if) the new owners put the right pitch together about pushing Charlton on together with the right offers for the players value then I would expect most to sign.
Don't get me wrong - there is a risk that it screws up - and I think it is essential that we sign up the top 24-30 year olds asap. But I would balance this against ensuring that CAFC is a sustainable club - we should not be throwing money at the whole squad to renew - like I said for five of them "thanks for the service but time to go"