Even though RD has said the club is staying at the Valley I still suspect that something could happen on that front. Imagine if RD could sell the Valley site for redevelopment for say £20m whilst securing a cheap lease on a new stadium on the Peninsula. No doubt in view of the Borough Plan, the council would be supportive, and on first glance the business case seems to stack up. That way RD would recoup his initial investment double quick. It all just makes me wonder.
Something that could happen?..... Well most things could happen I guess?....... but until we are in the top division I just do not see the business case for moving and I do not intend going through the Peninsular argument again, after helping gain ACV. I think the new owners have a little work to do with managing the other clubs that they own,to build a bigger stadium that we cannot fill anyway?. RD has stated the intention to stay at the Valley as you mention. Personally I am more focused on staying at the Valley and in the Championship.
Even though RD has said the club is staying at the Valley I still suspect that something could happen on that front. Imagine if RD could sell the Valley site for redevelopment for say £20m whilst securing a cheap lease on a new stadium on the Peninsula. No doubt in view of the Borough Plan, the council would be supportive, and on first glance the business case seems to stack up. That way RD would recoup his initial investment double quick. It all just makes me wonder.
Something that could happen?..... Well most things could happen I guess?....... but until we are in the top division I just do not see the business case for moving and I do not intend going through the Peninsular argument again, after helping gain ACV. I think the new owners have a little work to do with managing the other clubs that they own,to build a bigger stadium that we cannot fill anyway?. RD has stated the intention to stay at the Valley as you mention. Personally I am more focused on staying at the Valley and in the Championship.
As I understand it, RD has warned fans that we should be prepared for our best players to be sold to other clubs within his network. Another Lifer (and I apologise to him as I lack the energy to wade back through the various threads to find out his name) supposed that what he really meant "loan", not "sell" - which made more sense to me.
Well, we all want to see our club advance to the highest possible levels within the English leagues and provide us with entertaining football along the way but this looks highly unlikely now under this "imaginative" new approach.
We all sweat blood every weekend, straining every sinew to support our team wherever we may be but what lays ahead? Will "our" team be dissected and the talent spread around RD's network to fulfill others needs? How can we ever feel a part of the mass endeavour and share in the success of the team when our traditional support will apparantly count for so little?
I am not normally a negative person but after reading many of the threads following the takeover (and he did save us and I am grateful!) I feel that the traditional, rewarding role of the dedicated fan may be rapidly changing and I am not sure I like the feeling. Accountants, however, may love it?
It is still early days and a lot of speculation is still flying around so my premature fears hopefully are very misplaced.
Like many others on here, CAFC has always been an enormous part of my life and I hope it will always be so, especially after the full impact of RD's plans.
I would much prefer that RD and/or KM came out and said "this is how we are taking things forward, this is what we are going to spend money on and this is what we are not going to spend money on, this is how much and this is going to be how we'll compete".
Then people can praise and/or criticise what they actually do and what they actually plan to do.
Surely better to be hung for the sheep you've actually stolen than the one that people guess you might be stealing (to torture the saying).
At the moment the stated plan is still, in my mind at least, vague. Lots of broad strokes about the academy, networks, breaking even, matchday experience etc etc but when you read or listen to the interviews there is little flesh on the bone.
People are speculating and making assumptions that the plan must be this or that but we don't know and that lack of knowledge naturally causes uncertainty and doubt.
Personally I think RD may be underestimating the majority of Charlton fans. Most of us can understand a clearly stated plan and most will, if the plans has virtue, accept it.
There will always be some who demand more and more money be spent while at the same time refusing to buy a season ticket or complaining if prices go up even slightly but it has always been like that.
Most fans, I believe, understand that somewhere along the line the numbers have to add up and you can't keep spending more than you earn and most people will accept that as long as they can see what the plan is to move things forward. A lot will, as we have proved time and time again, actively help and support a forward looking and clear plan. Selling the vision(sic) to your fan base turns them into advocates and backers of that plan.
So when you say the academy is important tell us what they actually means. Will you build the £5m new build (which there have long been detailed plans) at Sparrows Lane for the first team academy and Community Trust? £2m of this is, I believe, to come from the FC with the rest coming from the Community Trust and other sources.
If the Academy is important then does that mean Cat 1 or Cat 2 that we have now? Paul Hart in the last programme is obviously still keen to move to Cat 1 and believes it is achievable even with the current building but with extra staff and facilities. Is that part of the plan? IF you haven't decided yet then fine but when will you make that decision?
Same goes for the new pitch. There is talk, but only from the Chief Operating Officer and in the Standard, of a £600k spend on the summer. But has that been confirmed and is that a new pitch, undersoil heating or what exactly. Because like many others I got a flyer with my Sheffield Utd tickets offering my pitch hire in the summer. Pushing it to replace the current mudbath in time if we have to hire it out.
Who will be managing/coaching the club next season and after that. OK, "discussions" are underway with Chris Powell we are told and we can't expect a daily update on how they are going but this remains a priority regardless of whether you think CP is the right man or not.
And how long will you be around?
One of the most powerful statements Roland could make it "I'm here for the next 10 years or longer. If we go down then that is a big setback but I will still be around, I'll save £4m from Tony and Michael anyway so I'll plough that back in the team and academy, build a good young team under whichever manager/coach it is and hope we go straight back up stronger than before". Or whatever the plan is.
If we know he is here for the long haul (the famous E*** S******) and how he plans to cope with setbacks then we have idea of what the plan is.
And I believe most, but never all, fans would accept that. They may not like it but they would accept it.
There are lots of other questions but ultimately they all come down to "what's the detailed plan and how long are you going to be around?"
For what its worth I think R D is buying clubs to cherry pick the best players within his club catchment area.IMO he has no interest in Charlton,only for his own benefit,to possible make a super European team.
Too much doom and gloom on here. This is what will happen. We beat the Blades on Sunday and destroy Sunderland in the semi final. Man City crumble before the power of Church in the final and we are set for Europe next season. RD is so happy he splashes the cash and we have trouble fighting off the cream of the division who want to join us for next years promotion rumble as we storm to the title and into the Premiership. Easy peasy.
Too much doom and gloom on here. This is what will happen. We beat the Blades on Sunday and destroy Sunderland in the semi final. Man City crumble before the power of Church in the final and we are set for Europe next season. RD is so happy he splashes the cash and we have trouble fighting off the cream of the division who want to join us for next years promotion rumble as we storm to the title and into the Premiership. Easy peasy.
Ah!! here comes nursey with my medicine...
Now this is what the like and lol buttons were invented for.
For what its worth I think R D is buying clubs to cherry pick the best players within his club catchment area.IMO he has no interest in Charlton,only for his own benefit,to possible make a super European team.
He he ... If you are right he ought to try manufacturing silk purses out of sows' ears, because with the clubs he owns he'd have a better chance. I think the expression is "LOL".
Henry Irvings comments above are spot on. Lets see some substance to the Flanders PR flannel that we've been given so far.
I am still looking for evidence that Roland does not want to just get his mittens on the Academy and run the club at League One level and exploit the youth set up as a scouting network entirely for the benefit of Liege. Hopefully the VIP will ask some appropriately difficult questions as to what is going on and try to get something firm about the intentions and when solid plans will be made and shared with the supporters.
Maybe it was the ordering of the discussion with the BBC interview but Roland only started to invest at Liege after the protests and storming off his office. Who knows whether solid investment was the plan before that. Hopefully, it won't need to come that at Charlton.
Not impressed at all with this takeover. I don't like what I am hearing from Roland. Not to going to bury my head in the sand and pretend everything is fine when there is scant evidence to support that view apart from wishful thinking.
Sometimes the only way of seeing the substance is through the passage of time. I don't want RD making false promises - or promises he can't keep. His statements have clearly been designed to manage expectation, and by the look of things they have worked. I suppose what we have after his takeover is a more stable club, but not one that is going to take any short cuts to success - we would have preferred a short cut of course - if we had a choice.
My belief is the key person in all of this is Chrissy Powell. There is a structure and we can all moan about it and try to work out if it benefits SL or us or whoever, but the challenge is to get us at the forefront of it all. If it is not going to work, it shouldn't be for the want of trying on our part and in his interviews RD seems to be suggesting that success is going to be down to the management of the club. This means seeing the other clubs as friends, not enemies and co-operating so that we all win, but also competing to get as high in the food chain as possible. If the plan is flawed, no doubt we shall discover the fact soon enough, but in the meantime - it is the only plan we have so let's get on with it.
If Chrissy is going to moan about his lot - RD might as well sack him now. But he isn't moaning and he isn't a quitter. He is the sort of man who will roll his sleeves up and make things happen. And maybe - and hopefully - RD sees this in Chrissy. Maybe. we should do the same as fans - we can't change anything and we don't know if this thing is going to work or go belly up - but if it goes belly up, we should be able to look at ourselves and say - we did all we could. It could be an interesting couple of years ahead!
Bizarre though it may seem to some, I think it's entirely possible that Duchatelet doesn't have a "plan" for Charlton. Moreover, he may not even see it as his responsibity to develop one.
In his last two interviews he's made it very clear that responsibility for the management of Charlton (and all Clubs within his network, presumably) is with the Club's Management. It's beginning to look as if he does not intend to run his Clubs "top down" or centrally. In this operating model Clubs will be encouraged (perhaps forcefully) to cooperate, but there would be no European Director of Football with responsibility for player recruitment, development and deployment. Nor a a group CEO and so on.
As a statement of management philosophy this laissez faire or decentralised approach might make sense, but at the risk of attracting opprobrium for being critical I'd highlight three concerns.
First, Duchatelet's constant references to "breaking even", "not spending to achieve success" etc. make it clear that he plans to keep losses to a minimum. This isn't just financial prudence, its philosophical. I suspect he'd rather prove that it's possible to compete without losing money than win football matches. Winning promotion to the Premier League does not appear to be his primary objective. This is all very well, but the question is whether it's feasible. Is it possible to survive in the Championship without losing £3-5m p.a.? I'm not sure, but I fear we're going to find out, even if we survive this season.
Second, Duchatelet appears to favour a focus on Youth development. Again, this is admirable, but as others have implied its no more than wishful thinking in the absence of concrete action. Do Standard de Liege have a "secret sauce"? Will they share it? Did Duchatelet help create it or did he just get lucky with the recent crop of young players? We're all focused on Chris Powell's contract, but if Duchatelet's rhetoric has meaning he'd be more worried about Paul Hart. I doubt he's even met him.
Third, some of Duchatelet's comments about the benefit of the network to young players strike me as extraordinary. The market for footballers (unlike that for most "workers") is highly efficient. If Diego Poyet and Jordan Cousins turn out to be good enough to play in the Champions League they won't need Roland or his network to get them there. More generally, in the absence of a clear strategy and structured decision making, it's hard to see the network as anything more than an occasional nice to have. Jean-Francois de Sart was quite revealing when interviewed. Leaving aside the fact that he made it very clear that "players that weren't good enough for Standard could go to Charlton", I got the impression that he'd genuinely tried to help Chris Powell during January. However, I'd wager that he badly underestimated the standard of the Championship. I wouldn't criticise him for this. How would he know? The point is that the experience so far might illustrate the difficulty of arranging loans (and transfers) which are mutually beneficial without the wisdom of a professional overseeing the network in its entirety.
Perhaps I'm being harsh. It is early days after all. However, Roland is certainly unconventional, perhaps eccentric (earlier in this thread I said "ever so slightly barking") and there is clearly a risk that he is conducting an "economic and social experiment" based on a few romantic notions and a large helping of wishful thinking. As yet, we have little evidence to the contrary. Standard Liege may have been top of the league in Belgium whoever the owner was.
All that having been said, there is a school of thought which says that success is as likely to be the result of luck as skill. And Duchatelet may be about to get lucky. Without having made any contribution (yet) to the Academy, he may be about to reap a huge windfall if players such as Cousins, Poyet, Lennon, the hugely impressive Gomez and others realise their full potential.
If we've acquired a lucky General it may not matter whether his plan is good, bad, indifferent or even non existent. And if we win on Sunday he'll have made an unbelievable start!!!
I started to watch Charlton as a seven year old in 1963 and in that time I have seen us sell our best plyesr on a regular basis. Too many to name but I was gutted when we sold Billy Bonds in 1967 a year later Len Glover (one of my all time favourite players) went, then it was Killer to Derby, Flash to QPR and so on. In recent times I was completely gobsmaked that we sold Parker to Chelsea when we were riding high in the Premier league that was the begining of the decline and dare I say the ultimate reason why Curbs got disenchanted. My point is we have ALWAYS been a selling club it goes with the territory being a CAFC fan so this neither surprises me or particularly upsets me as it has always been so. For what it's worth I think this Roland geezer will use us a pretty much a feeder club for Standard Liege I can see him wanting to move Poyet and Cousins there if they say no he will sell them anyway. CP must be totally gutted.
I would much prefer that RD and/or KM came out and said "this is how we are taking things forward, this is what we are going to spend money on and this is what we are not going to spend money on, this is how much and this is going to be how we'll compete".
Then people can praise and/or criticise what they actually do and what they actually plan to do.
Surely better to be hung for the sheep you've actually stolen than the one that people guess you might be stealing (to torture the saying).
At the moment the stated plan is still, in my mind at least, vague. Lots of broad strokes about the academy, networks, breaking even, matchday experience etc etc but when you read or listen to the interviews there is little flesh on the bone.
People are speculating and making assumptions that the plan must be this or that but we don't know and that lack of knowledge naturally causes uncertainty and doubt.
Personally I think RD may be underestimating the majority of Charlton fans. Most of us can understand a clearly stated plan and most will, if the plans has virtue, accept it.
There will always be some who demand more and more money be spent while at the same time refusing to buy a season ticket or complaining if prices go up even slightly but it has always been like that.
Most fans, I believe, understand that somewhere along the line the numbers have to add up and you can't keep spending more than you earn and most people will accept that as long as they can see what the plan is to move things forward. A lot will, as we have proved time and time again, actively help and support a forward looking and clear plan. Selling the vision(sic) to your fan base turns them into advocates and backers of that plan.
So when you say the academy is important tell us what they actually means. Will you build the £5m new build (which there have long been detailed plans) at Sparrows Lane for the first team academy and Community Trust? £2m of this is, I believe, to come from the FC with the rest coming from the Community Trust and other sources.
If the Academy is important then does that mean Cat 1 or Cat 2 that we have now? Paul Hart in the last programme is obviously still keen to move to Cat 1 and believes it is achievable even with the current building but with extra staff and facilities. Is that part of the plan? IF you haven't decided yet then fine but when will you make that decision?
Same goes for the new pitch. There is talk, but only from the Chief Operating Officer and in the Standard, of a £600k spend on the summer. But has that been confirmed and is that a new pitch, undersoil heating or what exactly. Because like many others I got a flyer with my Sheffield Utd tickets offering my pitch hire in the summer. Pushing it to replace the current mudbath in time if we have to hire it out.
Who will be managing/coaching the club next season and after that. OK, "discussions" are underway with Chris Powell we are told and we can't expect a daily update on how they are going but this remains a priority regardless of whether you think CP is the right man or not.
And how long will you be around?
One of the most powerful statements Roland could make it "I'm here for the next 10 years or longer. If we go down then that is a big setback but I will still be around, I'll save £4m from Tony and Michael anyway so I'll plough that back in the team and academy, build a good young team under whichever manager/coach it is and hope we go straight back up stronger than before". Or whatever the plan is.
If we know he is here for the long haul (the famous E*** S******) and how he plans to cope with setbacks then we have idea of what the plan is.
And I believe most, but never all, fans would accept that. They may not like it but they would accept it.
There are lots of other questions but ultimately they all come down to "what's the detailed plan and how long are you going to be around?"
I do agree with the vast majority of this. But with two exceptions: they are both to do with money. First the suggestion that RD should say " this is how much" we are going to spend. Surely it's never a good idea to let your competitors know how much you intend spending and on what? It either means they won't take any bids for players seriously (if RD subsequently change's his mind) or will rack up the price knowing he's got the dosh and is willing to spend it. Second, the cost of sorting the pitch. He's said it will be done (hasn't he?) but why give the contractors a clue as to what level they should "pitch" their tenders at? (If you'll excuse the pun).
As for how long RD's around for, well average male life expectancy in Belgium is, it seems, 76. RD is 67, so if he makes the average he's around for another 9 years. But for how many of those will he be either active and/or compos mentis? Who knows what his heirs (or the Belgium tax man) will want to do with his assets once he's dead?
I'm not saying he should say "the transfer budget will be £XX" as, as you say, that would be counterproductive.
He could say " The club loses £5m pa and I expect to reduce that to £2m pa within three years through increased income and cutting costs and the remainder will be covered by selling a player every other season. We'll also spend £2m on the new academy facility and another £1.5m a year on the academy to get Cat 1 status"
RD hasn't said what will be done about the pitch. Bradshaw did and as you say that was odd as it gives the contractors an idea. But has the deal been signed? Presumably Bradshaw didn't just pluck £600m out the air so my guess is that is a figure quoted by the contractor.
What we don't know is has RD agreed that and given the go ahead and if so for what exactly? New top surface, whole new pitch and drainage, all that plus undersoil heating or new 4D plastic pitch?
That RD is 67 just re-enforces the point. How long do you plan to be around?
A quite brilliant critique. Worryingly difficult to consider a more optimistic scenario, a well thought out strategy. Although I would love to hear about one.
In particular I cannot see how a network can function without some kind of central direction. If for example he wants CAFC to break even, the quickest way to get there, as seriously red keeps pointing out, is to get into the Prem. But that requires investment.
It reminds me uncannily of the arrival of the ad agency networks in Central Europe in the early 90s. I worked for DDB. Their plan was to break even from Year One. Ogilvy on the other hand were allowed to run at a loss for three years to build up volume. We had a good little team at DDB but I watched aghast as other 'teams' nicked our best players for higher wages, and my network bosses said tough, make the best of it. So I too said, sod that. And who rules the roost on the local market today? Yep, Ogilvy. And DDB? - hanging on to the most basic revenue to justify an office at all.
I'm not saying he should say "the transfer budget will be £XX" as, as you say, that would be counterproductive.
He could say " The club loses £5m pa and I expect to reduce that to £2m pa within three years through increased income and cutting costs and the remainder will be covered by selling a player every other season. We'll also spend £2m on the new academy facility and another £1.5m a year on the academy to get Cat 1 status"
RD hasn't said what will be done about the pitch. Bradshaw did and as you say that was odd as it gives the contractors an idea. But has the deal been signed? Presumably Bradshaw didn't just pluck £600m out the air so my guess is that is a figure quoted by the contractor.
What we don't know is has RD agreed that and given the go ahead and if so for what exactly? New top surface, whole new pitch and drainage, all that plus undersoil heating or new 4D plastic pitch?
That RD is 67 just re-enforces the point.How long do you plan to be around?
Or, to put it another way: What is your personal exit strategy?
I'm not saying he should say "the transfer budget will be £XX" as, as you say, that would be counterproductive.
He could say " The club loses £5m pa and I expect to reduce that to £2m pa within three years through increased income and cutting costs and the remainder will be covered by selling a player every other season. We'll also spend £2m on the new academy facility and another £1.5m a year on the academy to get Cat 1 status"
RD hasn't said what will be done about the pitch. Bradshaw did and as you say that was odd as it gives the contractors an idea. But has the deal been signed? Presumably Bradshaw didn't just pluck £600m out the air so my guess is that is a figure quoted by the contractor.
What we don't know is has RD agreed that and given the go ahead and if so for what exactly? New top surface, whole new pitch and drainage, all that plus undersoil heating or new 4D plastic pitch?
That RD is 67 just re-enforces the point.How long do you plan to be around?
Or, to put it another way: What is your personal exit strategy?
Following info from ONS site makes it clear what the difference is:
In 2010–12, male life expectancy at birth was highest in East Dorset (82.9 years) and lowest in Blackpool (74.0 years). For females, life expectancy at birth was highest in Purbeck at 86.6 years and lowest in Manchester where females could expect to live for 79.5 years.
On average, life expectancy at birth increased across all local areas in England and Wales by 1.3 years for males and 1.0 year for females between 2006–08 and 2010–12.
Life expectancy at age 65 was highest for men in Harrow, where they could expect to live for a further 20.9 years compared with 15.8 years for men in Manchester.
For women at age 65, life expectancy was highest in Camden (23.8 years) and lowest in Blaenau Gwent (18.7 years).
Comments
As I understand it, RD has warned fans that we should be prepared for our best players to be sold to other clubs within his network. Another Lifer (and I apologise to him as I lack the energy to wade back through the various threads to find out his name) supposed that what he really meant "loan", not "sell" - which made more sense to me.
Well, we all want to see our club advance to the highest possible levels within the English leagues and provide us with entertaining football along the way but this looks highly unlikely now under this "imaginative" new approach.
We all sweat blood every weekend, straining every sinew to support our team wherever we may be but what lays ahead? Will "our" team be dissected and the talent spread around RD's network to fulfill others needs? How can we ever feel a part of the mass endeavour and share in the success of the team when our traditional support will apparantly count for so little?
I am not normally a negative person but after reading many of the threads following the takeover (and he did save us and I am grateful!) I feel that the traditional, rewarding role of the dedicated fan may be rapidly changing and I am not sure I like the feeling. Accountants, however, may love it?
It is still early days and a lot of speculation is still flying around so my premature fears hopefully are very misplaced.
Like many others on here, CAFC has always been an enormous part of my life and I hope it will always be so, especially after the full impact of RD's plans.
Fingers crossed.
Then people can praise and/or criticise what they actually do and what they actually plan to do.
Surely better to be hung for the sheep you've actually stolen than the one that people guess you might be stealing (to torture the saying).
At the moment the stated plan is still, in my mind at least, vague. Lots of broad strokes about the academy, networks, breaking even, matchday experience etc etc but when you read or listen to the interviews there is little flesh on the bone.
People are speculating and making assumptions that the plan must be this or that but we don't know and that lack of knowledge naturally causes uncertainty and doubt.
Personally I think RD may be underestimating the majority of Charlton fans. Most of us can understand a clearly stated plan and most will, if the plans has virtue, accept it.
There will always be some who demand more and more money be spent while at the same time refusing to buy a season ticket or complaining if prices go up even slightly but it has always been like that.
Most fans, I believe, understand that somewhere along the line the numbers have to add up and you can't keep spending more than you earn and most people will accept that as long as they can see what the plan is to move things forward. A lot will, as we have proved time and time again, actively help and support a forward looking and clear plan. Selling the vision(sic) to your fan base turns them into advocates and backers of that plan.
So when you say the academy is important tell us what they actually means. Will you build the £5m new build (which there have long been detailed plans) at Sparrows Lane for the first team academy and Community Trust? £2m of this is, I believe, to come from the FC with the rest coming from the Community Trust and other sources.
If the Academy is important then does that mean Cat 1 or Cat 2 that we have now? Paul Hart in the last programme is obviously still keen to move to Cat 1 and believes it is achievable even with the current building but with extra staff and facilities. Is that part of the plan? IF you haven't decided yet then fine but when will you make that decision?
Same goes for the new pitch. There is talk, but only from the Chief Operating Officer and in the Standard, of a £600k spend on the summer. But has that been confirmed and is that a new pitch, undersoil heating or what exactly. Because like many others I got a flyer with my Sheffield Utd tickets offering my pitch hire in the summer. Pushing it to replace the current mudbath in time if we have to hire it out.
Who will be managing/coaching the club next season and after that. OK, "discussions" are underway with Chris Powell we are told and we can't expect a daily update on how they are going but this remains a priority regardless of whether you think CP is the right man or not.
And how long will you be around?
One of the most powerful statements Roland could make it "I'm here for the next 10 years or longer. If we go down then that is a big setback but I will still be around, I'll save £4m from Tony and Michael anyway so I'll plough that back in the team and academy, build a good young team under whichever manager/coach it is and hope we go straight back up stronger than before". Or whatever the plan is.
If we know he is here for the long haul (the famous E*** S******) and how he plans to cope with setbacks then we have idea of what the plan is.
And I believe most, but never all, fans would accept that. They may not like it but they would accept it.
There are lots of other questions but ultimately they all come down to "what's the detailed plan and how long are you going to be around?"
Ah!! here comes nursey with my medicine...
I am still looking for evidence that Roland does not want to just get his mittens on the Academy and run the club at League One level and exploit the youth set up as a scouting network entirely for the benefit of Liege. Hopefully the VIP will ask some appropriately difficult questions as to what is going on and try to get something firm about the intentions and when solid plans will be made and shared with the supporters.
Maybe it was the ordering of the discussion with the BBC interview but Roland only started to invest at Liege after the protests and storming off his office. Who knows whether solid investment was the plan before that. Hopefully, it won't need to come that at Charlton.
Not impressed at all with this takeover. I don't like what I am hearing from Roland. Not to going to bury my head in the sand and pretend everything is fine when there is scant evidence to support that view apart from wishful thinking.
My belief is the key person in all of this is Chrissy Powell. There is a structure and we can all moan about it and try to work out if it benefits SL or us or whoever, but the challenge is to get us at the forefront of it all. If it is not going to work, it shouldn't be for the want of trying on our part and in his interviews RD seems to be suggesting that success is going to be down to the management of the club. This means seeing the other clubs as friends, not enemies and co-operating so that we all win, but also competing to get as high in the food chain as possible. If the plan is flawed, no doubt we shall discover the fact soon enough, but in the meantime - it is the only plan we have so let's get on with it.
If Chrissy is going to moan about his lot - RD might as well sack him now. But he isn't moaning and he isn't a quitter. He is the sort of man who will roll his sleeves up and make things happen. And maybe - and hopefully - RD sees this in Chrissy. Maybe. we should do the same as fans - we can't change anything and we don't know if this thing is going to work or go belly up - but if it goes belly up, we should be able to look at ourselves and say - we did all we could. It could be an interesting couple of years ahead!
In his last two interviews he's made it very clear that responsibility for the management of Charlton (and all Clubs within his network, presumably) is with the Club's Management. It's beginning to look as if he does not intend to run his Clubs "top down" or centrally. In this operating model Clubs will be encouraged (perhaps forcefully) to cooperate, but there would be no European Director of Football with responsibility for player recruitment, development and deployment. Nor a a group CEO and so on.
As a statement of management philosophy this laissez faire or decentralised approach might make sense, but at the risk of attracting opprobrium for being critical I'd highlight three concerns.
First, Duchatelet's constant references to "breaking even", "not spending to achieve success" etc. make it clear that he plans to keep losses to a minimum. This isn't just financial prudence, its philosophical. I suspect he'd rather prove that it's possible to compete without losing money than win football matches. Winning promotion to the Premier League does not appear to be his primary objective. This is all very well, but the question is whether it's feasible. Is it possible to survive in the Championship without losing £3-5m p.a.? I'm not sure, but I fear we're going to find out, even if we survive this season.
Second, Duchatelet appears to favour a focus on Youth development. Again, this is admirable, but as others have implied its no more than wishful thinking in the absence of concrete action. Do Standard de Liege have a "secret sauce"? Will they share it? Did Duchatelet help create it or did he just get lucky with the recent crop of young players? We're all focused on Chris Powell's contract, but if Duchatelet's rhetoric has meaning he'd be more worried about Paul Hart. I doubt he's even met him.
Third, some of Duchatelet's comments about the benefit of the network to young players strike me as extraordinary. The market for footballers (unlike that for most "workers") is highly efficient. If Diego Poyet and Jordan Cousins turn out to be good enough to play in the Champions League they won't need Roland or his network to get them there. More generally, in the absence of a clear strategy and structured decision making, it's hard to see the network as anything more than an occasional nice to have. Jean-Francois de Sart was quite revealing when interviewed. Leaving aside the fact that he made it very clear that "players that weren't good enough for Standard could go to Charlton", I got the impression that he'd genuinely tried to help Chris Powell during January. However, I'd wager that he badly underestimated the standard of the Championship. I wouldn't criticise him for this. How would he know? The point is that the experience so far might illustrate the difficulty of arranging loans (and transfers) which are mutually beneficial without the wisdom of a professional overseeing the network in its entirety.
Perhaps I'm being harsh. It is early days after all. However, Roland is certainly unconventional, perhaps eccentric (earlier in this thread I said "ever so slightly barking") and there is clearly a risk that he is conducting an "economic and social experiment" based on a few romantic notions and a large helping of wishful thinking. As yet, we have little evidence to the contrary. Standard Liege may have been top of the league in Belgium whoever the owner was.
All that having been said, there is a school of thought which says that success is as likely to be the result of luck as skill. And Duchatelet may be about to get lucky. Without having made any contribution (yet) to the Academy, he may be about to reap a huge windfall if players such as Cousins, Poyet, Lennon, the hugely impressive Gomez and others realise their full potential.
If we've acquired a lucky General it may not matter whether his plan is good, bad, indifferent or even non existent. And if we win on Sunday he'll have made an unbelievable start!!!
www.rolandsrevolution.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/would-roland-duchatelet-really-sell-our.html
As for how long RD's around for, well average male life expectancy in Belgium is, it seems, 76. RD is 67, so if he makes the average he's around for another 9 years. But for how many of those will he be either active and/or compos mentis? Who knows what his heirs (or the Belgium tax man) will want to do with his assets once he's dead?
That's for a baby at birth, not a man aged 67, he can expect another 20 years.
He could say " The club loses £5m pa and I expect to reduce that to £2m pa within three years through increased income and cutting costs and the remainder will be covered by selling a player every other season. We'll also spend £2m on the new academy facility and another £1.5m a year on the academy to get Cat 1 status"
RD hasn't said what will be done about the pitch. Bradshaw did and as you say that was odd as it gives the contractors an idea. But has the deal been signed? Presumably Bradshaw didn't just pluck £600m out the air so my guess is that is a figure quoted by the contractor.
What we don't know is has RD agreed that and given the go ahead and if so for what exactly? New top surface, whole new pitch and drainage, all that plus undersoil heating or new 4D plastic pitch?
That RD is 67 just re-enforces the point. How long do you plan to be around?
As you would say at a Jewish funeral "long life"
A quite brilliant critique. Worryingly difficult to consider a more optimistic scenario, a well thought out strategy. Although I would love to hear about one.
In particular I cannot see how a network can function without some kind of central direction. If for example he wants CAFC to break even, the quickest way to get there, as seriously red keeps pointing out, is to get into the Prem. But that requires investment.
It reminds me uncannily of the arrival of the ad agency networks in Central Europe in the early 90s. I worked for DDB. Their plan was to break even from Year One. Ogilvy on the other hand were allowed to run at a loss for three years to build up volume. We had a good little team at DDB but I watched aghast as other 'teams' nicked our best players for higher wages, and my network bosses said tough, make the best of it. So I too said, sod that. And who rules the roost on the local market today? Yep, Ogilvy. And DDB? - hanging on to the most basic revenue to justify an office at all.
In 2010–12, male life expectancy at birth was highest in East Dorset (82.9 years) and lowest in Blackpool (74.0 years).
For females, life expectancy at birth was highest in Purbeck at 86.6 years and lowest in Manchester where females could expect to live for 79.5 years.
On average, life expectancy at birth increased across all local areas in England and Wales by 1.3 years for males and 1.0 year for females between 2006–08 and 2010–12.
Life expectancy at age 65 was highest for men in Harrow, where they could expect to live for a further 20.9 years compared with 15.8 years for men in Manchester.
For women at age 65, life expectancy was highest in Camden (23.8 years) and lowest in Blaenau Gwent (18.7 years).