HAVE A DRINK ON US, CHARLTON FANS TELL CLUB’S THIRSTY YOUNG PLAYERS!
Just days after Charlton Athletic’s billionaire owner made national headlines by rationing water to academy players during a heatwave, the club’s fans have stepped in to provide their own.
Rationing water and electricity – staff have been told to hold meetings in the dark rather than turn on lights – is the latest cost-saving measure deployed by Belgian Roland Duchatelet, who has forced the club’s youngest players to queue for tap water during the hottest summer for a generation.
He has also taken away free breakfasts from Charlton’s academy players - despite having received more than £15m from the sale of players from the club’s highly rated academy in recent years.
On Thursday morning Charlton’s academy players had something to stave off the heat, however, thanks to the Coalition Against Roland Duchatelet (CARD), which delivered three crates of bottled water to the club’s training ground in New Eltham.
The water bottles are emblazoned with the slogan “We want our water back”, an adaptation of the regular chants against Duchatelet from Charlton fans that “We want our Charlton back”. The specially designed label says the water has been “Provided by Charlton fans for our academy players because our billionaire owner won’t”.
A CARD spokesperson said: “Restricting water for young players while they are doing intensive pre-season training in the recent extraordinary temperatures is not only the latest in a long line of ridiculous decisions by Duchatelet, it’s also dangerous for the players.
“The first-team players are still being supplied with bottled water, so it’s clearly nothing to do with environmental concerns.
“The club says the decision has been taken because it needs to be more cost-conscious, but Duchatelet has been the owner for four years so he has been in charge of all the decisions that have led the club to its current position languishing in League One, and a debt of around £65m – far and away the biggest in the club’s history.”
A dozen first-team players have left the club since the end of last season, with only two new ones recruited by Lee Bowyer, who has been acting as caretaker manager since March. Consequently, the squad is so depleted that Bowyer was only able to name five out of the permitted seven substitutes in last Saturday’s first game of the season – and the five including three youngsters who have never started a league match.
Among the former Charlton academy players to have been sold by Duchatelet in recent years are England international Joe Gomez (Liverpool), Ademola Lookman (Everton), Ezri Konsa (Brentford) and Morgan Fox (Sheffield Wednesday). England World Cup goalkeeper Nick Pope is another young player who was quickly sold on from The Valley.
CARD recently called on fans to boycott The Valley until Duchatelet sells the club and remains committed to exposing and embarrassing his regime, which has been without a chief executive since December and without a chief finance officer since February. The club has no chairman, no functioning board of directors and Duchatelet has not seen the team play live in this country since October 2014.
Plastic bottles? Disappointed in this. CARD obviously doesn't care about the environment and are willing to kill the planet to further their own agendas.
when we having a full scale riot like the scenes at standard liege
When YOU organise and do it.
chill your beans with the caps, was a bit of a joke - our owner clearly does not care about being embarrassed, as we are so below the radar now that many news outlets wont pick this up, abandonment of a match is where stuff starts to happen, have donated to card and been involved in on the pitch protests, so just an opinion, i respect and applaud anyone that does something - but a 100 water bottles likely will not result in a few more signings to our thread bare sqaud or a takeover in the near future - we are unfortunately stuck with this horrible cnut until he decides the game is over.
Brilliant. Will share the crap out of this if any news stories comes of this (which it definitely should). Also, will happily contribute some money if we want to keep the academy players stocked up regularly.
surely refillable bottles are a lot better for the environment? of course this isn't why crusty is doing it, but less plastic the better?
Surely any screw-top bottle is refillable?
i would put my house on the plastic bottles as above are not reused a insulated water bottle is far better, anyway this isnt about water and plastic just a side note.
...but they left the tops on when they handed them over. Everybody knows you can’t trust anybody at Charlton with a bottle top in case they throw them...
Comments
Just days after Charlton Athletic’s billionaire owner made national headlines by rationing water to academy players during a heatwave, the club’s fans have stepped in to provide their own.
Rationing water and electricity – staff have been told to hold meetings in the dark rather than turn on lights – is the latest cost-saving measure deployed by Belgian Roland Duchatelet, who has forced the club’s youngest players to queue for tap water during the hottest summer for a generation.
He has also taken away free breakfasts from Charlton’s academy players - despite having received more than £15m from the sale of players from the club’s highly rated academy in recent years.
On Thursday morning Charlton’s academy players had something to stave off the heat, however, thanks to the Coalition Against Roland Duchatelet (CARD), which delivered three crates of bottled water to the club’s training ground in New Eltham.
The water bottles are emblazoned with the slogan “We want our water back”, an adaptation of the regular chants against Duchatelet from Charlton fans that “We want our Charlton back”. The specially designed label says the water has been “Provided by Charlton fans for our academy players because our billionaire owner won’t”.
A CARD spokesperson said: “Restricting water for young players while they are doing intensive pre-season training in the recent extraordinary temperatures is not only the latest in a long line of ridiculous decisions by Duchatelet, it’s also dangerous for the players.
“The first-team players are still being supplied with bottled water, so it’s clearly nothing to do with environmental concerns.
“The club says the decision has been taken because it needs to be more cost-conscious, but Duchatelet has been the owner for four years so he has been in charge of all the decisions that have led the club to its current position languishing in League One, and a debt of around £65m – far and away the biggest in the club’s history.”
A dozen first-team players have left the club since the end of last season, with only two new ones recruited by Lee Bowyer, who has been acting as caretaker manager since March. Consequently, the squad is so depleted that Bowyer was only able to name five out of the permitted seven substitutes in last Saturday’s first game of the season – and the five including three youngsters who have never started a league match.
Among the former Charlton academy players to have been sold by Duchatelet in recent years are England international Joe Gomez (Liverpool), Ademola Lookman (Everton), Ezri Konsa (Brentford) and Morgan Fox (Sheffield Wednesday). England World Cup goalkeeper Nick Pope is another young player who was quickly sold on from The Valley.
CARD recently called on fans to boycott The Valley until Duchatelet sells the club and remains committed to exposing and embarrassing his regime, which has been without a chief executive since December and without a chief finance officer since February. The club has no chairman, no functioning board of directors and Duchatelet has not seen the team play live in this country since October 2014.
Notes for editors: This story published by The Independent last week gives the background to some of the cutbacks at Charlton: Charlton Athletic: From Premier League perennial to rationing food and water.
Plastic bottles? Disappointed in this. CARD obviously doesn't care about the environment and are willing to kill the planet to further their own agendas.
Now get to the media with this.
Any idea how it was received @ Sparrows Lane
But still a good idea.
Hope it gets the publicity it deserves.
Well done CARD and the brave person who broke through Security at the TG