Charlton’s owners are a joke – but it’s no laughing matter for the fans
Charlton’s owners have long been the pantomime villains of the last couple of years for their running of the club, but their statement yesterday claiming some fans want the club to fail was at best ridiculous, at worst completely delusional.
Protests reached new levels during Sunday’s 2-0 win over high-flying Middlesbrough, as disgruntled fans staged a mock funeral for the club and threw beach balls onto the pitch, along with the demonstrations that have become a regular occurrence at The Valley.
Charlton fans have seen enough since Belgian businessman Roland Duchatelet, who has a collection of football clubs including Standard Liege in Belgium and Alcorcon in Spain, became owner in January 2014.
Fast forward two years later. In that time, four manager sackings, a re-hiring, countless failed signings, the chief executive effectively describing the club as a breeding ground for young players, and priorities that have seen more investment in infrastructure than the playing squad.
As a result, the Addicks, an established Premier League team until 2007, find themselves in the bottom three in the Championship and hurtling towards League One.
Of course, they were promoted from League One with 101 points in 2012. Something tells me that will not be happening this time when the inevitable slide into the third tier is confirmed. That volley from Robin van Persie at The Valley seems absolutely light years away at the moment.
Rick Everitt, editor of Charlton fanzine Voice of The Valley and part of protest group CARD (Charlton Against Roland Duchatelet), says the owners, and not the fans, are the problem at the club.
“The club itself has said publicly that 30% of its season ticket holders on average do not attend. There are plenty of people staying away because they won’t support the owners,” he says.
Everitt says CARD was formed in January after various protest groups joined forces to vent their feelings about how the club is being run.
“It was time to co-ordinate them and focus our resources.
“People were pleased that some leadership was being provided, but the tone had already been set by the groups individually.
“I think the sight of a large number working together again has raised morale among supporters as a whole.”
He thinks that the notoriously silent Duchatelet has definitely noticed the ill-feeling among supporters.
“We can see in a series of public statements from the owner, who had been silent for two years, that they are rattled.”
Chief Executive Katrien Meire labelled Charlton fans “weird” for feeling that they had a sense of ownership of the club and compared them to customers at a restaurant or cinema, but in their recent statement they said the comments were taken out of context.
“No,” he says when asked whether fans have simply been reduced to just customers. “I think that’s a misunderstanding of the importance of the crowd to the staging of football matches. The affinity people have with their club is much stronger than a traditional retail relationship.”
Various takeover attempts from a consortium led by former Charlton Chief Executive Peter Varney, currently the Executive Vice Chairman at National League South side Ebbsfleet United, were rejected by Duchatelet and his cohorts.
“Disappointed,” he says, regarding the rejected takeovers. “I have a close affinity to the club.”
Varney thinks fan level board representation can help ease the situations like Charlton’s.
“There should be an elected fans representative to raise issues of concern to fans like ticket prices.”
It seems there are only two ways Charlton can get themselves out of the mess they are in off the field.
One is if the fans accept the state their club is in, or Roland Duchatelet leaves.
The option for both to work in tandem has passed.
And something tells me the fans will not give up protesting. It seems it’s only a matter of time until Duchatelet sells up, for his own good and for the future of the club.
