Surely today’s ramblings rank as the most mental of statements from our esteemed owner, but has anyone got links to his previous statements particularly the {...,...} one?
We need to publicise his mentalness even further than just today’s statement on Bowyer to crank up the pressure on him and so a consolidated list would be useful
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Certainly the the most insulting to a myriad of people, and could possibly be challenged in a court of law.
Archive link to Original Protest Statement above. Text:
Dear Fans,
Last Sunday, some individuals did not come to The Valley to watch the game and support the team, but came to create disorder on the pitch and interfere with the players and the game. Disorder which is, allegedly, needed to drive change in ownership and management.
Whom would they expect the club to be sold to? How long would a sales process take? Is it easier to sell the club when it is in League One rather than Championship?
Some individuals seem to want the club to fail. This is a confused approach, since following this logic leads to exactly the opposite of what we all want: staying in the Championship.
Allegations regarding the CEO are misrepresented* and are continuously used as a method to discredit and fuel personal abuse, hatred and with a risk to personal safety.
Although certain individuals tell you it does not happen, in recent weeks Roland Duchatelet has met the fans, the CEO has met with several different groups of fans and the communications team have attended several fans meetings. We will continue these meetings and constructive dialogue with fans.
We have 9 games left in which we have to get 6 points more than our competitors.
The team just got 7 points out of 3 games.
We still have the chance to make it happen with the support of the fans until the very last game. We must believe it is still possible. Every football fan knows the 12th man is a crucial factor in the success on the pitch.
*I think the difference is also because fans don't see themselves as customers and {…} they go to the restaurants with their families every week and they go to the cinema but if they aren't satisfied with the product will they go and scream to the people in charge of it? No they don't, but they do it with a football club and that's very weird (meaning unique) because they feel a sense of ownership of a football club and that's a really difficult balance of how you try and engage with fans and make them, incorporated into some of the decisions of the club, {…}.
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https://www.cafc.co.uk/news/view/5c77e0391c719/owner-roland-duchatelet-demands-efl-acquire-charlton
That one, where he asks the EFL to buy us. Text:
Roland Duchatelet acquired Charlton on January 3rd 2014.
At that time of the purchase, Charlton competed in the Championship, a competition that was governed by the Financial Fair Play rules (FFP). Those rules allowed a club to make an annual operating loss of £3 million plus a further maximum of £3-5 million of shareholder investment. With an average annual turnover of £12m, Charlton was thus allowed to make losses up to 50-60% of its turnover.
During seasons 2013/14 and 2014/15 several EFL club meetings were held to discuss a change of the FFP rules. After several unsuccessful votes in the space of a couple of months, in November 2014, the EFL finally found a majority amongst the Championship clubs to allow a club to have permitted losses up to a maximum of £39m over three seasons or £15m over three seasons in case there is no shareholder investment.
Thus, 10 months after the purchase, Duchatelet’s Charlton had to compete in a competition where clubs are allowed to lose £13m per season which equates to 108% of its turnover. Under these new Profitability and Sustainability rules (P&S), the EFL is allowing or actually forcing shareholders to double their shareholder investments and thus dramatically increasing the financial burden on those shareholders.
While the attractiveness of the Championship competition has always been that it’s the most competitive league in the world, it is now becoming renowned for being the biggest financial graveyard or black hole in football.
Under the Owners’ and Directors’ test, the EFL has to assess and give its final approval for the purchase of a club. It does so with a special focus ‘to protect the image and integrity of The League and its competitions, the well-being of the Clubs and the interests of all the stakeholders in those Clubs’ (Appendix 3 of the EFL Regulations). If this is one of the objectives of the EFL, it’s hard to see how under these P&S rules increasing the (shareholders’) debt of clubs is protecting the well-being of the Clubs and the interests of their stakeholders.
The first seasons under Duchatelet Charlton finished 18th and 12th in the Championship. After two years of ownership without problems Charlton got too many injuries relative to its limited squad size. Results were poor. Fans started to criticise and then protest, sometimes during the games, which didn’t help. Charlton got relegated to League One.
As a result of the damaging and sometimes criminal fans protests and the changed financial climate of the P&S rules, Charlton were officially put up for sale at the end of 2017. A few months later Heads of Terms were in place with two candidate buyers, pending the funding of the transaction.
However, new incidents were created by a coalition of fans against the owner based on fake news, like young players were not getting water to drink and staff not being paid due bonuses. It’s hard to deny that such actions could jeopardise the ongoing purchase process. The EFL said it would intervene to find out who was telling the truth but nothing like that happened. They did not really investigate things. Moreover EFL representatives suggested to the group of critics that their claims of August 2018 relating to the bonus might have some basis (despite the fact the EFL hadn’t investigated). Two fans found sufficient support in this ambivalent attitude of the EFL to come to Belgium last weekend. They tagged and damaged several properties of Duchatelet, the homes of two friends of Duchatelet and the house of the friend of a friend.
Football has been the fastest growing industry in England in recent decades.
However which foreign candidate owner will be prepared to invest millions to get a chance to bring a club to the Premier League and at the same time accept acts of vandalism against his property and intrusion in his private life, wherever in the world he/she lives?
Therefore the owner demands that the EFL acquires his football club.
Information on the owner: https://www.cafc.co.uk/club/club-overview/ownership
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https://www.cafc.co.uk/news/view/5cd00045a6ae2/congratulations-to-the-promoted-teams
Wherein he congratulates Chris Wilder. Text:
Please see below for a message from Charlton Athletic owner Roland Duchatelet.
I would like to congratulate Luton Town and Barnsley on their promotion to the Championship.
I would also like to pass on my congratulations Norwich City and to Chris Wilder and Sheffield United on their respective promotions to the Premier League.
What Wilder has achieved, with the playing budget he has, is very impressive and something he, the club and their fans can be very proud of.
He came close to joining us in the summer of 2016 when we selected him to be our manager but he decided to go to Sheffield United where he knew he would be welcomed by everybody.
While their seasons’ may be finished, we still have a very important few weeks ahead of us and our focus has to be on getting promotion to the Championship.
The staff, the players and the Charlton fans have all played their part this year and now we need one last collective push to give us the best chance of promotion.
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(To be continued)
https://www.cafc.co.uk/news/view/5cfa7874d812c/charlton-owner-roland-duchatelet-updates-on-takeover-and-201920-season
Charlton owner Roland Duchatelet updates on takeover and 2019/20 season
The following message is from Charlton Athletic owner Roland Duchatelet.
Our win at Wembley was fantastic and, as I mentioned, a credit to all involved.
Following the win, I was filled with hope as one of the parties interested in buying the club wanted to move forward quickly to complete the purchase of the club. They want to solve the issue of the ex-directors loans first, which I can understand but may take time. In this respect I would like to thank Richard Murray, Sir Maurice Hatter, David White and David Hughes for their cooperation during this process.
The delay is frustrating, because the fact Charlton are now back in the Championship should increase our chances of being sold and now, with the summer transfer window opening, is the right time to acquire a club.
The past few years, I have continued to pay everything at the club, despite the way some of our staff members, their family, my friends, my family and myself have been treated by individuals who claim they act in the best interest of the club.
I do not intend to do otherwise until the club has been sold. However, I want to bring the yearly losses to a more reasonable level. Operating on a small budget will limit our chances of promotion to the Premier League, which are already obstructed by the large, unsustainable, overspending by some other clubs in the division. Does it mean we have no chance? No.
Does it mean we will be relegated? Not at all. We have good players, good staff and the fans seem to be united behind the team again.
Nevertheless, it is unlikely we will win as many games as we did in League One, where we had one of the largest wage budgets and we will need everyone behind the team as you were this season.
Once again there have been some brilliant players to come through our academy this season and we will continue to bring players through next year. Our staff have already begun preparations for additions to our squad for next season and we have some good players at the club already as we look to build on last season.
The club first spoke to Lee Bowyer about a contract extension earlier in the season. There is a trigger in his contract for a contract extension, which we exercised in May, and he needs to agree to this for his contract to be extended as per the current agreement. He has done a fantastic job and therefore talks about improving Lee’s contract are scheduled for next week. Both the club and Lee want him to be the Charlton Athletic manager next season.
Stability is essential, even if the club gets sold soon.
I have been trying to sell the club for nearly two years now. Many English football clubs are for sale and many of those have been for a long time. The main reason is that nearly all Championship club owners face huge yearly losses. It is unclear how long this can continue, with clubs losing tens of millions of pounds each year. It has become unaffordable for nearly anyone to own a football club in the Championship meaning it is not easy to find a suitable buyer.
For example, it is debatable whether the first candidate for buying the club, who was pushed, with the very best intentions, by ex-CEO Peter Varney, ex-director Derek Chappell and Rick Everitt (VOV from 29 12 15), the current owner of Ebbsfleet football club, would have been the right fit for Charlton.
A specific issue in relation to the sale of Charlton is that while a club in London is very attractive, the value of land and buildings is high because the stadium and the training ground are located in London. This wouldn’t be a problem for rich enough acquirors but we have had quite a few interested parties who wanted to buy the club while renting the stadium and the training ground.
Being back in the Championship will be of help to a takeover because it is one step less to the ultimate goal: getting into the Premier League. In the meantime owner and fans are stuck together. Please make the best of it. Let’s try to win games and enjoy those moments at The Valley.
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https://www.cafc.co.uk/news/view/5d07a7df422e2/charlton-unable-to-reach-an-agreement-with-lee-bowyer-on-contract-extension
Bowyer and club cannot reach agreement. Text:
Charlton Athletic have been unable to reach an agreement with manager Lee Bowyer regarding the extension of his contract.
The fact the club is for sale has not helped with finding an agreement. The current owner needs to take into account that a new owner may want to appoint his own manager. However, this concern did not stop the current owner proposing a contract extension of one year to Lee Bowyer, even though the club may be sold in a few weeks. Under those circumstances a multi-year extension would not be good business practice.
In addition, since the club is still losing money, which is one of the reasons why the club has not been sold yet, the focus on reducing costs means that we are extremely limited on payroll increases.
Lee has been offered a one-year extension to his contract at a level which is approximately three times what he had since his last increase when he became permanent manager in September. It is six times what he earned when he started as assistant manager in 2017 and 50% more than what any Charlton manager previously had (excluding the Premier League years). This reflects the strong desire we have to continue to have Lee as our manager. But Lee wanted much more.
The owner understands Lee’s point of view, because many Championship clubs pay huge amounts (some pay millions of £ per year) to their manager. It is fair that Lee feels he should be paid like many other Championship managers. That the average Championship club makes a loss of around £15 million per year is not something players should care about. The owners are crazy.
This is why we could not come to an agreement. Another element may have influenced as well. Unlike previous contract discussions, Lee wanted an agent to handle it. We reluctantly accepted. However, involving a player agent in a manager’s contract discussion is not healthy. If the agent helps make the manager more money, it may result in the manager to have a more positive attitude towards players proposed by the same agent, a conflict of interest. Obviously, Lee is above such things, but it is nevertheless not a healthy situation.
The club hasn’t started to look for any other manager in the meantime and does not intend to appoint a permanent manager, since the club is going to be sold. A caretaker manager will be announced in due course and in the meantime the other staff members will continue to prepare the upcoming season for which a lot of good work has been performed already.
If Lee does change his mind before his contract expires and chooses to continue his good work at Charlton, he is still welcome to stay.
However our ability to sell the club is the most important thing right now.
I know this may not exactly count as a statement from RD, and I can't recall if he put anything out on the OS about the removal of bottled water from youth players at the training ground, but this is what (in translation) he told a Belgian sports magazine:
Erik Raspoet and Michel Vandersmissen in Knack from 29/08/18
A few days ago, entrepreneur Roland Duchâtelet was once again in the British press, from the tabloid The Sun to the institution of The Times. It was buzzing again at his London football club, Charlton Athletic. It turned out that the youth players no longer receive bottled water due to cutbacks.
Mr. Duchâtelet, what a harsh man you have become?
Roland Duchâtelet: (unperturbed) I drink only from the tap. Well, from now on they will also get water from the tap. They will not suffer thirst, and they will not play worse because of it. The club is making too many losses, so we need to pay more attention to the money. Moreover, it is an environmentally friendly measure.
I know that its been raised before but these statements and comments are less like those of a rational businessman and instead are more akin to those of a religious cult leader who expects unquestioning acceptance of his every utterance and decision-making.