Charlton were bought by Belgian Roland Duchâtelet in December and immediately sold their two best players during a relegation scrap. So do they need to sound the dodgy foreign owner alarm?
One of the more intriguing takeovers of recent times came at Charlton before Christmas when Belgian businessman Roland Duchâtelet bought the Addicks out and immediately sold top scorer Yann Kermorgant to Bournemouth and midfielder Dale Stephens to Brighton — by common consensus two of Charlton's better players.
Duchâtelet is a serial collector of football clubs. He owns Standard Liège in Belgium, FC Carl Zeiss Jena in Germany and AD Alcorcón in Spain. His son runs Hungary's Ujpest FC and his long term partner has control of Belgian side Sint-Truidense. It cost him £14m to add Charlton to that portfolio in December. If the old adage about becoming a millionaire by first becoming a billionaire and then buying a football club is true, Duchatelet would appear to be on a Brewster's Millions-style rush to bankrupt himself.
At first glance, he could be seen as an asset stripper — take advantage of a club desperate for a new owner by buying it up cheaply and then selling its star players before deserting the shell at a later date. At Standard Liège he immediately sold a clutch of the club's better players after taking over in 2011 and then fired popular manager Mircea Rednic in favour of relatively unknown 37-year-old Israeli Guy Luzon. Fans protested outside the ground, and the headquarters of the electronics company with which he made his name, as a result.
Or could we be seeing the start of another Watford situation here? A Championship club effectively set up as a feeder to sister clubs abroad? Charlton have already taken Yohann Thuram-Ulien, Anil Koc and Astrit Ajdarevic on loan from Liège. Given how much Watford's temporary signings from Udinese distorted their performance in the lague last season, should we not be concerned about the integrity of the Football League as it becomes populated, effectively, by a load of European reserve teams?
Duchâtelet has been in London this week, holding his first press conference alongside manager Chris Powell, to tell a different story. The clubs he owns are of similar size unlike the Udinese-Watford comparison. He foresees a profitable model not dissimilar from the one that QPR operated successfully at the end of the 1980s and beginning of the 1990s — buy low, promote young kids from within, sell high, repeat.
"I ask the fans not to be mad if once in a while we need to sell a good player," he said at The Valley on Thursday. Kermorgant and Stephens, while key to the team, were both coming to the end of lucrative contracts, and at 32-years-old Kermorgant's sell on value were his deal to have been renewed would have been almost zero. Every penny paid to him from the end of this season would effectively have been dead money from a business point of view, and so he's gone while there was still some cash to be recouped.
And that may seem fairly suicidal, given that Charlton — who, until Bolton came to town, were by far the most limited team seen at Loftus Road this season even with Stephens and Kermorgant in situ — are currently in the bottom three, facing a fixture pile up because of their ploughed field pitch, and showing few signs of life. They've lost their last four games and the best hope they can offer in the short term is the promise of Premier League loan signings in the coming weeks.
But Liège have prospered under Luzon, with a squad built around youth — after 26 matches they're top of the Belgian pro League by ten points ahead of Club Brugge. They've won 19, drawn six and lost just one game this season.
Nevertheless, Duchâtelet has apologised to those supporters initially angered by his actions. He said: "I regret what happened, and I am the one who caused it. I have many qualities but I do not always communicate well and I didn't read the situation right. I'm not perfect but now we understand each other better and that's why we have signed a charter that stipulates that fans will have a say in issues that closely affect them such as facilities and ticket prices."
Having apparently learnt lessons from that, he says Chris Powell will remain in charge at The Valley despite a difficult season which even has a minority of Addicks fans questioning the position of a man who is held up as a hero from his playing days, and only enhanced that by leading them to promotion from league One within 18 months of taking the job as boss. "We are in discussions to renew Chris's contract. There's no doubt he's a very good coach," Duchâtelet said today.
It's easy, and very worthy, to say that youth is the focus. Tony Fernandes has preached this since coming to QPR and yet he appointed Harry Redknapp — the ultimate wheeler dealer, whatever he says, and a proper short-term merchant - as his manager and has signed off on a whole host of ageing, short term signings designed, seemingly, to get QPR back to the Premier League at the first attempt.
Sightings of youth team graduates have been fleeting — Michael Harriman played at Liverpool on the last day of last season, Max Ehmer had a quarter of an hour in difficult circumstances against Middlesbrough before Christmas and Tom Hitchcock won a home match with Ipswich in the last minute back in August. All three impressed, did everything that was asked of them, and then disappeared again beneath the waves of Yossi Benayoun, Mobido Maiga, Javier Chevanton, Oguchi Onyewu, Gary O'Neil, Karl Henry, Jermaine Jenas, Ravel Morrison and any of the other dozens and dozens and dozens of signings QPR have made during the last five years with both eyes fixed no further than the next three matches. A national journalist asked on Twitter this week "what is the point of being a youth team player at QPR?" as the club announced its eighth loan deal in a league where only five are permitted in a matchday squad. Indeed, what is the point?
Duchâtelet seems determined to actually follow through with his promise, even if it means — as seems increasingly likely — Charlton end up playing back in League One next season to start with. That would make QPR right and Charlton wrong, in some eyes — "take your worthiness on the road to Crawley next year mate while we play up here" - but medium and long term progress comparisons will be more interesting.
For the second time this season Charlton fan David Bonney is here to lend LFW some Addicks input ahead of the weekend game. We thank him for his time.
Why are Charlton struggling this season? Do you think they'll avoid relegation?
Lack of investment in the team. We overachieved last year but instead of strengthening we let players like Fuller go and didn’t replace them and as such have a limited squad having to rely on young players to fill in the holes.
It’s looking grim relegation wise we have games in hand but have lost four games on the spin and with our unsuspected cup run and the dire state of The Valley pitch (be prepared, the pitch is not conducive to the beautiful game at the moment) resulting in games being called off we have a bit of fixture pile up which will stretch our limited squad. The club has said we are looking to get two or three loan players in and whether we avoid relegation or not I think will depend a lot on the calibre of these players.
Why did Charlton sell two of their better players, apparently without replacement, in January?
They both were coming to the end of their contracts and the new owner looked at it and decided it made financial sense to cash in now. No one wanted Yann Kermongant to go, he has been a talisman for us these past few seasons, but he’s 32 and wasn’t happy with the contract we offered him. It seems the new regime is very focused on youth and didn’t really fight hard to keep him even though he, Powell and the fans wanted him to stay. We have brought in a few players including loans from Standard Liege (also owned by our new chairman) but it remains to be seen if they can replace the players we sold.
What is the general consensus about the new owner? What statements has he made, what plans does he have, what do people think of him?
People are relieved our takeover saga has ended really and we seem to be now on a much firmer financial footing. Duchâtelet (the new owner) has made the right noises about raising standards and moving forward with a focus on youth but there are still question marks over where we fit into his portfolio of football clubs (he currently owns or has some sort of control over Charlton, Standard Liège, FC Carl Zeiss Jena in Germany, AD Alcorcón in the Spanish second division and Ujpest in Hungary) and what his overall long term strategy for us is.
Does Chris Powell retain the support of the fans? Is he likely to be kept on by the new owner? What do you think of his performance?
Chris Powell retains the support of the majority of fans though I think we’re approaching a tipping point in that regard having lost the last four games and with relegation looming ever closer. If things don’t start improving in the next few weeks the, for now, minority of voices calling for Powell to go, will grow and if so I think Duchâtelet will swing the axe. For myself I’m firmly behind Powell he has done well under difficult circumstances up until now and I’m fully prepared to go down with him in charge if it comes to that.
Who have been the stand out performers...
We sold them, Kermongant and Stephens. Apart from them a couple a youngsters, Jordan Cousins and more recently Deigo Poyet (son of Gus), have come into the side and showed they have great potential for the future.
...and where are the weak links in the team?
We’ve struggled to score goals all season but apart from that at the moment we are weak down the flanks, normally we have two of the best fullbacks in the league in Chris Solly and Rhoys Wiggins but they are both out and their replacements have been shaky.
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