New owners

Quite frankly anything is possible as we have absolutely no idea who really owns us and what the terms and conditions of that ownership are.

The system is rotten.

 

I wouldn't even trust the EFL to know what's really going on.
How thoroughly did they check what they were being told? Again we don't know.

 

As Elfs has said previously, the Sunderland Not 606 thread on our takeover is an interesting read, given that they have some experience of this leadership team and that generally the fans of both clubs have mutual respect for each other.

Here’s some recent quotes. Sound familiar ?……………

“Your two years of running costs will be covered by selling anything that's not nailed down.

He will try and get the fanzines onside, he will feed them bullshit to get them to support his narrative. It’s easy to tell when he's lying/bullshitting though....his lips will be moving.”

and

“Provide proof of funds to run the club for a couple of years, funds which have to be kept in escrow. Then try and either flip the club to new buyers (making a tidy profit out of it) or try and get new investors in. The billionaire backers he's talked about probably loaned him the money to buy the club and provide the escrow funds for a couple of years, and will expect a profit on their investment if they aren't into the day to day running. The worry will be what if they can't get a profit then, will they take over the club and asset strip further to get their money back?”

 

I don't know how it will all end, but the writing's been on the wall since ESI bought the club. If Sandgaard hadn't bought the club we'd probably have gone into administration by now, or even liquidation. How this would have affected Roland I'm not sure, but when TS bought the club it also cemented the separation from the assets and gave Roland the whip hand, and a nice little income with no risk attached. The idea of asset-stripping doesn't work since Roland has the assets, neither does the idea of flipping the club for a quick profit, since that requires a period of footballing success and promotion at least once. How likely does that seem?

 

How about moving us for this lot?

 

How does that work?

 

Keep the academy, keep selling the kids but reduce us to a small lower L1 or upper L2 outfit where our expenses will be much much lower.

 

Always been a hunch, what happens when the remaininder of the 15 year lease runs down?

 

You ground share with Bromley.
Probably be in the same League as them by then (unless Bromley go up of course).

 

We've always sold the kids. It might minimise the losses, but won't be enough to make us a profitable club, far less a successful one. It's also a policy which would make us a soft touch (which we are already). Take two players Burstow and Beadle, the goalie we faced on Saturday, for whom we got I think £400,000.How much are those two worth now? I agree that may well be Methven's plan, but it won't work.

 

More like Homesdale.

 

Every new owner has a honeymoon period, but this is probably the shortest one. Even Mouthall managed to string us along for a few months. In the words of the great Jimi Hendrix:
Castles made of sand
Slips in the sea
Eventually..............

 

To be fair to Charlie Methven, things could be a lot worse………

https://londonnewsonline.co.uk/spor...ing-amid-rumours-of-massimo-cellino-interest/

 

According to Rick we're still losing £7/8m a year, which is just the same as under Sandgaard, Roland and the Spivs. So the SMT's plan to cut losses has failed. Must be partly because our squad is so big, with so much dead weight. I can't see the owners being prepared to lose much more than that so the spending will have to be targetted very carefully, as opposed to the Andy Scott blunderbus technique.

 

Yes, playing 48 different guys this season has not helped - in any respect, including costs.

I think this is very bad news.
No reduction at all in the money being lost is a disaster.
But this is what happens when fans are ignored, patronised and lied to.
ST sales wither and the money dries up.

We aren't like Portsmouth.
The only team in a regional town, with a fiercely loyal and exclusive fan base.
CAFC is a modest sized suburban team, in a City where the more 'casual' end of the supporters' spectrum has many other local choices.
Including that old Athletics stadium we all ended up subsidising just a few miles over the river.

Successive rubbish owners have drained the life out of our Club and we're losing a whole generation of fans.
That relegation in 2007 was the beginning of a long decline that we may never be able to recover from.
Well done again to Murray and the Board for choosing old Boot Face as our gaffer to replace the mighty Curbs

 

Some very interesting detail here……..

https://londonnewsonline.co.uk/spor...ith-global-football-partners-putting-in-8-9m/

So still £8/9 million to trim from the losses before we achieve break even. Our league position has already dropped dramatically since GFP took over.

If they don’t back NJ next season and he walks or is sacked then that will be it. We’ll be heading for L2 and a ground share with Bromley.

 

We'll need to start scouting players properly. Scott, M. Sangaard, Driesen, none of them any good. NJ will need to have the same sort of vision and acumen as Curbs or Sir Lennie or even SCP for us to get ahrt of this mess, and Scott will have to be replaced by someone who knows a player when he sees one.

 

28 minute interview with the broker who put together the ownership consortium…..

https://www.charltonafc.com/news/watch-charlie-methvens-depth-interview



Nothing much in it. He loves the club, we’ve got special supporters, we’ve got a special academy, it’s a three year plan.

Nothing much to dislike but the proof will be in the eating.

I think we’ll have more money to spend this summer than we have done for a few years, but we’re starting from a low base, so whether it will be enough to gain promotion I don’t know. I certainly don’t think we’ll be anywhere near a relegation battle but maybe we’ll be back to where we were before GFP took over, maybe slightly above.

 

Convenient that it's a three year plan, since the first year was not only wasted - it saw the team in sharp decline even from the bang-average performances of the 2022-23 season.
And three managers since August last year was obviously a master-stroke in planning.

This kind of stuff isn't going to convince anyone to renew their season ticket.
Didn't he even admit that mistakes were made?
There need to be sackings. And we know who should be top of that list.

 

Realistically with the squad we have only May, Leaburn, Small, Coventry, Anderson, Kanu and Dobson who is most likely leaving are capable of a team pushing for promotion