henrythecat said:The problem, as I see it, is the significant difference in world views between us, the fans, customers, clients, whatever, and RD, the owner, the industrial genius, the amazing visionary of a new way of football, or whatever.
Because we are there watching the team week by week, feeling attachment, long history of support, etc. we want success. Success in football is very simple. Be entertaining, win enough to not get relegated and occasionally do something to add excitement to the season. Be in a fight for the play offs, or winning the league, or a cup run. And if we find ourselves in a relegation fight, to see a team which is fighting and trying to avoid the drop. To do this you need a team of players who can play at the right level and a management team who engage with the fans, look like they are trying and understand the league in which the club is playing. Fund it in a way that gives hope of success, but not to the extent that it will break the club. This is the model followed by virtually every side in the country. The ones that have tried a different model are more often than not, the ones that have failed.
RD's world view is that he is an industrial visionary that can bring about a new way of doing things. He apparently wrote a book in the 90's which, ironically, was about getting greater transparency in the world of economics and politics. This led to him forming his own political party to try to bring about his vision i a political sphere. He has decided that he can break the current football economics model. Invest in infrastructure to train young players to bring them up to standard, put them in the first team and then sell them at a profit. Alongside this, make the fans into 'customers' by giving them a wider match day (and possibly mid week) experience so the customers come for that experience as much as for the football. It wouldn't surprise me if he had plans of building shops, cinemas and restaurants alongside the ground to make football just a small part of what might happen at the Valley, thus reducing the risk.
We are also only a small part of his empire. His main business is in electronics and will, no doubt, take up most of his time. We are just a subsidiary that he has invested in for him to try out his ideas about football. He has put in place his team to run it. I would imagine that in his mind, they are doing a reasonable job, reducing the losses, adding in new experiences for the customer, and so on. He isn't that bothered how the current fans think because they don't fit into his new world of football. He only comes to the Valley for 2 or 3 hours mid week, every few weeks, for business meetings. He isn't interested particularly with the football or our history and what happens on match days. That is for KM and team to manage and provide him with results.
So the changing of the head coach (who is probably just a junior divisional manager in RD's mind) is being delivered in the same way you get in large companies. Divisional managers are moved from area to area to meet certain targets, but coming from an internal group who are known to the senior management team. Bringing people from outside is risky at that level, so go with what you know.
That is what we are getting. Junior managers, known to RD, delivering against short term goals and whilst RD owns the club I can't see any change to this. KM is delivering against the targets he has set her and probably seen as a success by RD. It wouldn't bother him that we see her as out of her depth, as our view of what a football club isn't his and isn't important. RM is there to keep the 'customers' happy.
We can all see how flawed the RD model is in the long term. It makes no economic sense and leads to a reducing of value year on year because success in footballing terms will be almost impossible, and football success is what drives increasing value in football clubs in the UK. But with RD we will never have a side which is capable of winning anything. Fans, as we know them, will drift away. Against that there is no culture in the UK of football clubs being anything other than places to see football matches. Having lots of other 'experiences' are just not part of the way we do things. So the idea of having 'customers' to enjoy a wider match day experience is mad.
But I suspect none of that matters to RD. He wants to prove he is right and he can afford to lose £40m. If it goes really badly he still has high value real estate to do something with. He is playing with us in a way that is foreign to our way of thinking because we see the club as a part of the community and there for the fans. He sees us as a vehicle to change the way football runs. And it is unlikely that he will attempt to understand us because our world view does not fit with what he is trying to do.
Personally, I don't think it matters who our manager is, because the end result will be the same, the gradual erosion of the club. My hope is that RD will get bored with this project and want out. The danger then, of course, is how he disposes of us. Will he sell a going concern or asset strip?
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We are merely a toy. It is an experiment and he's here for long-term meddling and testing rather than turning a quick profit. Varney would not have gone to him with the Kuwaiti money offering less than RD paid.
He is an arrogant, pig headed fool and only when we're relegated and losing millions more each year, will he take any notice. Like Henry says, that may be the time we really have to worry about.
It is a flawed concept/idea.
He said in an interview last year that he had about ten years left in life/business - where will Charlton figure in ten years? Will we be languishing in the 4th or 5th tier, but reaping the benefits of the Academy, thus breaking even? It's a very risky strategy, and in my opinion, has little chance of giving him any significant return.
More likely is he sells every decent player we have this window/summer (asset strips), then seeks to sell the club for what he paid for it plus his recent losses - that is the only way he can make money.
If that is soon enough for Charlton to recover (it would basically mean playing the u21's in tier 3 next season), my hope is yes.
But beyond maybe a hotel and some residential, The Valley's simply in the wrong location to repeat that trick.
21st place suggests a sesson like this one. Widespread dissatisfaction, crowds drifting away as they find better things to do, and an overall drip in income on match days, plus players with any ability wanting out, and decent players not wanting to sign. We are firmly in the second group, and the results are there for all to see.
Sadly, it reinforces the picture most of us here have in our minds of the bleak future under RD.
But it also will serve to galvanise the protests and have those with far more nous & brain cells than me, burning the midnight oil in an attempt to find some chink in his armour. And there HAS to be one.
There must be people who RD has shafted in the past who loathe his very name and who could potentially point us in a certain direction. This could be through his business or via the various football clubs he owns/has owned. Could this be worth investigating ?
What, apart from formulating ideas to prove to himself that he's that visionary henry mentions, turns him on (IYKWIM) or is dear to his heart ? We need to find a way to target "something" that will really hurt him, albeit not in his pocket.
I've run out of words & silly ideas but I'm certain that cunning plans are afoot & already in the pipeline to counter our enemy- that's in effect what RD is. It will be a significant battle but one which we must win for our sakes and those of our children & children's children.
We cannot let this egomaniac destroy our Club.
As others have already said, it's an excellent analysis, incisive and thoughtful.
However, I am still not sure you have quite nailed it. No criticism intended, but if we study what he has done at the other clubs, it does not quite fit, in most cases, does it? But this is not surprising because he isn't doing the same different thing (if you see what I mean) at the other clubs. Each one appears to be different from the other.
Just like PV, we owe it ourselves to be able to say, at least we tried.
Something I took for granted in the past, something that no matter how terrible things might be on the pitch and no matter how little money was available to be spent by the various former owners in my 20 years as a supporter, never once made me question my desire to attend as many Charlton games as I could afford.
Why did we have to be the club to draw the short straw and get an owner at the extreme end of that trend of football being a business, a deluded man without a passionate bone in his body.
Just leave Roland, find a different hobby and stop destroying ours.
His belief that he can still get what he wants will slowly erode away and he would have to sell...or just continue looking like a fool.
Let's hope we are not completely buggered by then.
Perfect choice.