This would come as much of a shock to supporters as leaving The Valley. Duchatelet suddenly announces that the Championship is too expensive and decides to play next season in League Two.
This is what's happening in France. The club I've been going to watch for the last few years (Le Poiré sur Vie) have announced this week-end that they will give up their place in 'Le National' (Division 3) and instead will be entering CFA2 (Division 5).
And this is not the first time this has happened. Another club 'Carquefou', a suburb of Nantes, did the same last year.
One of the reasons given is the recent change of the promotion and relegation in the French leagues which was changed a few weeks ago to only 2 teams. I nearly started a thread on this last week but decided that few people would care about what's happening inn France. However upon reading today's paper I start to wonder if this could happen in England. We all know that clubs lose a lot of money in The Championship. Didn't Blackpool really get relegated on purpose? I could try to translate the whole of the newspaper reports but in summary it's a decision based on running costs. Also the gap between the teams and those relegated from Ligue 2: 180,000 euros for those already in the league, and 2 million for those relegated. It's quite sad because this club has been promoted from the regional leagues to the 3rd Division over he past 15 years.
One of the club's 'presidents' had this to say:
'Could we play in Division 3 with greater aims? To invest more money in an effort to get promotion? Two years ago when we were close to promotion (they were about 8 points clear in 3rd place) we calculated the costs. Without doubt we missed our opportunity at that time. Since then it seems that the door to promotion has been closing. The reform of the league with two going up instead of three is only going to accentuate the problem. Should we then continue as we are with no other objective than staying up, (as we did) with one game to go in 2014, and on the final match, in 2015?'
In other words: it's not worth shelling out money just to fight relegation battles, we may as well concede defeat, and play in the fifth division where we are safe from financial ruin. Is this where football is heading, or is it just a French defeatist attitude?
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But now I ask myself 'what's the point'? Will they even try to go up to the 4th Division? Recently two other clubs in the region (both about 45 minutes drive away have gone up to the 3rd Division. Should I go there instead or will they just come to the same conclusion?
What with the situation with Luzenec who were refused entry to Ligue 1 last year after winning promotion and subsequently sent down to the 5th or 6th Division, I wonder why any French football fans will continue to go. I'd like to talk to them about it but I don't know anyone who goes. I guess I'll just have to go to another match next season and talk to stangers. At least I'll know that they are the hard core fans!
Lastly I'd just like to say that I'm surprised how few people have commented on this thread. I think it's very important. I don't expect anyone to give two hoots about French football or my pleasure (or not) in watching it, but the hypothetical question I asked in the thread title is worth discussing. What would you do if this started happening in England? Do you think it possible in England? Has it kind of happened already in a more surreptitious manner at Blackpool?
The realisation that the losses were to continue after we got back up from the Third Division are said to be the main reason why Kevin Cash pulled his money.
I wouldn't like to assume that this is what happened at Blackpool, because Oyston is clearly a nutter, but I certainly think you've made the case for it to be considered.
makes me shiver...
If it's just this one club that do it then you'd have to say 'well, that's their decision - it seems a bit daft but that up to them.' However if other clubs start to drop out of Division 3 (and two have now taken this decision) then it would be a general problem (although the fans of the club to my amazement don't seem to see this as a problem).
Don't forget that although you may say that this is in France and so it doesn't affect Charlton just bear in mind that we have a Belgian owner, and that his intentions are not transparent. This is why I think it is relevant to Charlton. Why is he so intent on getting top Academy status? Would he be happy just to while away our time in The Championship without getting involved with the financial risk of The Premiership?
Does that mean that they can on offer players contracts with promotion bonuses?
Also, does the relegation mean they have to release all their players? If not, presumably they have to keep paying them the same money - and might have to do so anyway if they can't get the same deal elsewhere.
If does strike me as being a lot more complicated than it would seem at first.
To come back to the point, I would loathe Charlton to do it. The logical approach (for me) is to sell the expensive players, bring on the youngsters, and the club will naturally settle to it's new level. Why invite a doublé relegation?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/33076683
This meant that players, including FA Trophy 90th minute equalising hero Ryan Kendall said their farewells on Twitter and announced their intentions to look for clubs elsewhere.
However it turns out that while the club are up for sale the owners aren't taking everything out of the club, but won't be investing further. Hopefully a backer can be found soon.
Confusing - can't work out whether it's an extremely stern punishment or a completely ineffective, empty gesture? I suspect the latter.
I'm not going anymore. There are two other clubs in the same league which aren't much further away but I've lost the will to go to anymore games in France. I normally find the pace of the games to be tedious and the atmosphere pretty flat but all this is the final nail in the coffin as far as I'm concerned.