crisis, protesting and strategy what next for cafc

superclive

Hi everyone and sorry for a new thread on all this. This may have been covered before but I am wondering if CARD can take this to a new level now. It feels as if we are in a horrible stalemate now with RD digging his heels in, the fans furious and alienated and the team slumping amongst all of this.

So what next. A continuation if this conflict dragging the club down? RD gives in and sells after relegation and we start afresh? The latter is what we all want but can we do even more to make this happen.

So I'd like to float the idea that CARD or maybe the trust actually looks to get itself involved with a potential buyer and then brings a way out to the table for RD, with an element of supporter ownership too. I can't help but think that if Varney investors are still interested that this could be achieved given the communication coming from that camp. But could we go further? Anf openly try to enfage other intersted parties as a cinsortieum. This would helpbus vet potential buyers and prevent them going off the raulsnin future. a great mechanism for any interested buyer? How much could we raise as fans? Charlton as 20% supporter owned, pioneering and it suits our club.

I think a change of direction needs to come. Constant protests and boycotts are just going to eat away at the club and RD will be left with a shell that he won't sell as the value is so low. Meanwhile we are losing support hand over fist.

Thoughts? Any idea how this works in Germany?

Pedro45

There is no stalemate; RD and Pinocchio are losing ground fast, you just cannot see that on the surface yet. Hence the desperate statements regarding failure and unlawful action. We need to maintain the support for peaceful protest as long as is needed and watch the cracks grow bigger and bigger.

The Boro game and Belgian leaf-letting were a massive wake up call for RD, and we must maintain that pressure incessantly.

Pinocchio is in an untenable position, and once Roland realises what financial damage has been done (probably about July/August time when the provisional 2015/2016 accounts are shown to him and he has to agree a budget for the new season) he will take action. Hopefully that will mean selling up fast!

MrLargo

I don't feel we're at a stalemate, I think things are coming to a head. No supporters, no sponsors, a laughing stock in the national press and about to be relegated - they can't just blindly stumble on indefinitely whilst we starve them of income, we are close to winning this.

As far as identifying potential buyers goes, Peter Varney has already done this for us, and Roland has also stated that he's received plenty of expressions of interest - he has an easy way out, he just needs to make the decision to take it. In terms of vetting potential buyers, that's not straightforward, but I doubt that anyone with harmful intent would want to buy a club that whose supporters have made life so uncomfortable for the previous owner.

I agree that some of our actions feel like they are "eating away at the club", but if we don't stay away through anger now on a temporary basis then yet more will stay away permanently due to lack of interest. Has to be done.

superclive

Thanks for the responses. I hope you're both right and it's coming to a head. Is it still worth looking at these options though, supporter ownership?

andynelson

I didn't expect the protests to have an instant effect, so it's no surprise that Roland hasn't put the club up for sale. I feel sure that he'll do so in his own time, regardless of what Richard Murray says, he has Varney's e-mail address. We must be prepared for the long haul.

Redmidland

@superclive, there is some merit in what you have said, I'm not so sure about supporter ownership. Lets assume he wants £50 m to sell, if we wanted to have a 20% stake in the consortium (as you mention above) we would need to raise £10m from supporters and on our current average crowd that's (using 15,000 as average) circa £700 per person if everyone put in, which quite clearly they wouldn't, and then we would need some kind of representation on the board.
However I think there is merit in trying to find potential alternative consortia to the one we hope is still around (Peter Varney's), after-all look how long it is taking to find a buyer for Villa. The last thing I would want to see is if by some miracle RD wants to sell this summer, he cant find a buyer and refuses to deal with Peter!
I think we are in this for the long game as others have said, but no harm in 'fishing' to see what is out there.

superclive

Thanks RM. I think we need to be doing something pro active that ensures we can prevent this type of ownership in future. Looking at those numbers. I reckon some fans may be prepared to put in a fair bit more than 700 so it would even out and might even be cheaper. If we could say we have say 7 mill pledged and find a buyer to stump up the rest .... We elect a comittee or a single board rep.

Algarveaddick

The reply I received from the club would indicate that any approach would be unwelcome (but we do know he is a stranger to the truth)...

"No, Mr Duchatelet has no plans to sell the club. But we are working hard as a team to build a better future for CAFC going forward"

Stig

It's a war of attrition. It was never going to be a quick victory. We have lots of reasons to be optimistic, many of them mentioned already by @Pedro45 and @MrLargo, but that doesn't mean we should rest on our laurels.

I don't feel we need to waste energies of identifying a potential owner. Apart from the fact that we know of at least one that's waiting in the wings, by Duchatelet's own admission there are always offers to buy. What we need to do is to keep pushing to get him to accept that he needs to sell. There are three things that we know about Duchatelet. We need to use these as the basis for our actions.

Vanity: He is a vain man. He believes he is a visionary and that he is ahead of everyone else. He is using Charlton as a legacy project; the legacy project of a man who is all to conscious of his own mortality. He longs for future generations to remember him positively. He wants the memory of The Great Roland Duchatelet to live on after his death. That's why he likens himself to Alan Turing. The trouble for him is that his ideas do not fit reality. His plan for Charlton would not work if he had the support of each and every fan. The fact that he does not even recognise the importance of the fans, shows how desperately out of touch with reality he is. We need to demonstrate his foolishness to him and we need to embarrass him by demonstrating his foolishness to the world. He desperately wants the world to think he's clever. We need him to realise that the cleverest thing he could do is to walk away and try something else.

Miserliness: Whether or not he plans to make money out of Charlton is a moot point. One thing that is absolutely certain though, is that he doesn't want to lose any money. For an old skinflint, he's got himself into a rather unfortunate position: The club can't make money without taking a huge gamble and that is the very antithesis of the plan. If he sells though, he is unlikely to recover what he has spent as his underfunding and mismanagement mean that the club is no longer worth what he paid for it. We need to do two things here. We need to consistently put the message out that the most painless way forward for the frugal Walloon is to cut his losses at the earliest opportunity. We also need to do everything in our power to minimise any income that he can make from the club.

Aloofness: Despite his desire to be seen as a great man and to leave a legacy for the world, he is very reticent about actually doing anything about it himself. He's had the idea and he's bought the club, let the little people take the plan forward. Why get involved personally when you have a string of underpaid puppets to do your bidding? He doesn't want to come to London, he demonstrates that loud and clear every match day. Just look at the pain on his face in January when he had to don the old duck-taped Loafers and top-up his Oystercard. He had little choice but to come and sort out Meire's mess, but that's not his style at all. As much as he wants the big headstone, he doesn't actually want to do the dirty work to get it. We need to do everything in our power to make him involved and to stop him from hiding in is secret bunker. We need to be bloody awkward.

I don't want to claim that victory will be easy, but it will be ours if we keep plugging away on those three fronts.

stonemuse

very good Stig

c4fcdenmark

A positive thread, stick with it CARD!

superclive

Great peice stig. I can't disagree with anything there. But I still have this huge concern that he ain't going anywhere fast and that whilst the current unrest goes on we will slide further down the football ladder losing support and by the time he does go the club will be a shell.

The question I am asking and having a go at answering is, what more can we do or what can we do differently to prevent this.

Are there ways of forcing a buyout a management buyout?

MuttleyCAFC

He protects himself by not exposing himself to the club. He is safely tucked away in his Belgian bunker!

mascot88

its so Weird/Unique that he wants to be involved... everywhere he goes he is universally hated... everywhere he goes there ends up with protests...

I can't start thinking about this again... it just sends me mental...