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Another big Charlton article in Belgium
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That is written by Bart Lagae who was over here for the Wolves game and met with @Airman Brown and a few others including me. Very disappointing, although someone did say he was friendly with KM. This is his email address : bart.lagae@nieuwsblad.be but be civil with him, Google translate is not reliable, and he does seem like a decent guy. And since he has been over his news group have given extensive and uncritical coverage to the protests. Maybe we just need to do a bit more work on him. He is also on Twitter, I'll check if he has posted that article there.6
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Given that this article has almost certainly the work of RD and his Belgian PR people rather than an independent journalist with any critical faculties it would be helpful to have a more accurate translation - especially since we tend to get bugger all else from RD.
If he is still persisting with his view that any team can be competitive and compete eventually in the Premiership while being profitable and debt free, despite all the evidence to the contrary, perhaps RD might wish to tell us what Plan B is for achieving this state of Nirvana because it is pretty clear that Plan A has ended in near complete disaster.0 -
That probably what they call their Katie Hopkins.stackitsteve said:Looking at the other articles at the end of the page its disappointing to see that while our papers seem to be full of Kanye West and Katie Hopkins over in Belgium they have stories on "Miss Bumbum".
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I heard it was something like a cardigan!Starinnaddick said:What is a Pullover Armenian Businessman ?
Ed beat to it.0 -
Here's a quick translation (sorry, not polished) - hope it helps make it a bit more comprehensible:
Charlton fans have been scratching their heads about it since 2013: what is 69 year-old Belgian Roland Duchatelet’s aim in investing in their club? First they thought their team would become a feeder club for Standard, the club where Duchatelet was then chairman. After the sale of SL, they hoped that he would also get rid of Charlton. The opposite is true. Duchatelet has big plans for the club, with eventual sights on taking them to the Premier League. But first Charlton need to be debt-free and making a profit. (Translator’s comment - Ha! Ha!) Serious investment in players and wages is out of the question, resources for a modern academy are high on the agenda.
Duchatelet has noble intentions but the speed with which he has gone to work looks like the dance of Echternach (?): three steps forward, two back. This week the club faces a great step backward with the likely relegation from the Championship, the English Second Division. In order to maintain breakeven, Charlton will have to sell their best (young) players and cut costs. How to reconcile this with the Premier League ambitions is not clear for the time being.
Charlton and their young CEO KM have good ideas over matchday experience, but are coming up against a wall of suspicion. Spoilt by the big money from overseas, English football has become arrogant and conservative. Average English players earn enormous sums, foreign investors are only welcome in order to pay these wages. In the next three seasons the PL clubs will share more than £5 billion in TV money, an increase of at least 40%. It is unclear how Duchatelet can ever be competitive in such a landscape.
We admire the St Truiden businessman that he keeps trying despite all opposition. But Duchâtelet must also be honest and dare to admit that his football ideas cannot convince the fans. The Standard supporters spat him out and also the fans of Charlton do not want him. Duchâtelet sold Standard because he and his colleagues were physically threatened. The more civilised fans of Charlton Athletic have not yet taken things so far. We hope that Duchâtelet admits his mistakes before the protest really gets out of hand. A football club does not simply hang together with numbers, a club can only be viable if the supporters follow.
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That's a much more well balanced article now it's been more correctly translated. Thanks.
The primary focus on match days though is winning and if you really want to increase the number of fans and the overall feel of the ground, winning playing good looking football with a team of regular players the fans identify with.
It's their failure to grasp this with any of their clubs that have led to the spectacular failure of the project.
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Helpful translation, Heather - many thanks. Fwiw I looked up Echternach Springprozession on Youtube. It is a six-day Roman Catholic ceremony held in Echternach (Luxembourg) which involves the participants proceeding along the city streets by hopping firstly to the left and then to the right. The author has chosen an interesting metaphor for RD's inscrutable ways, except that nowhere in the films can be seen blindfolded dancers emptying their wallets into the street while simultaneously falling helplessly backwards to land painfully on their rear-ends and cursing the onlookers ....
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Sounds much better in that format ...thanks.0
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Looks like it's time to be less civilised0
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Well done, @Weegie Addick . It now reads like Bart is trying to diplomatically suggest to RD that it just isn't working. Cannot say I agree that KM has "good ideas about match experience" though. Might drop him a line about that, because I think that's where there is a fundamental cultural misunderstanding. The Premier League is arrogant, true, as are many of the fans, and Bart follows them. But below that, where fans get behind their team even when they are bottom - if they believe the players and management are giving their all - that isn't "conservative". That is the soul of English football which draws the admiration of fans all across the Continent.7
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I have invited him to come and see us and have a chat on Saturday night
I hope he takes me up on my offer! 1 -
@Weegie Addick Thanks for that, much appreciated. I read both the Google Translate version and the well translated version as basically "he's trying, but it is not working." Which I think from an outsider's perspective is relatively accurate. I agree with him and his assessment of the English game, and that is a factor working against Roland. It is a hindrance to Roland (though I still also believe that if you can't adopt to your surrounding in two years then you're going to struggle in whatever business you're in). But it will be a challenge to any new potential owners as well.0
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Was this back in December right after Christmas? Is it fair to say that things have gotten drastically worse since then? I wonder what his evaluation of the protests would be like were he to talk to you all now (apologies if I'm misunderstanding the timeline).PragueAddick said:That is written by Bart Lagae who was over here for the Wolves game and met with @Airman Brown and a few others including me. Very disappointing, although someone did say he was friendly with KM. This is his email address : bart.lagae@nieuwsblad.be but be civil with him, Google translate is not reliable, and he does seem like a decent guy. And since he has been over his news group have given extensive and uncritical coverage to the protests. Maybe we just need to do a bit more work on him. He is also on Twitter, I'll check if he has posted that article there.
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It screams to me of a reporter trying to protect his relationship with a source by flattering them. In fairness, he has no similar motivation regarding Charlton fans.
"But first Charlton need to be debt-free and making a profit" is laughable to anyone with a basic understanding of how English football is set up, rightly or wrongly.2 -
But doesn't it feel weird saying essentially "look at this mug and his ridiculous belief that a football club shouldn't be tens of millions of pounds in debt?" Do we not have enough nuance to be both anti-Roland (who has increased the debt) and anti-status quo--which is an environment where every year a new club(s) is at risk of bankruptcy?Airman Brown said:It screams to me of a reporter trying to protect his relationship with a source by flattering them. In fairness, he has no similar motivation regarding Charlton fans.
"But first Charlton need to be debt-free and making a profit" is laughable to anyone with a basic understanding of how English football is set up, rightly or wrongly.0
