It's been Charlton Alexandra right from the off. He's had a go at trying to stabilise in the Championship with cheap imports and cheap coaches. He has also been badly advised on the standard of the Championship, probably by the current clown in the dug out. However, in the background it has always been about developing a first class Academy, and producing a Gomez or Lookman to sell on. He's hoping to produce a couple each year to offset costs. He bought the club because of its Academy and made an early decision that committing funds for an attempt at getting to the Premiership was not in his plans, despite the propaganda. They have also probably now assessed that League One is the best level to break even or turn a profit. This is a long term project.
If we drop into League One, he will reduce costs again, and load more debt onto the club. A reduction in Match-day income will be offset against wages and costs. As @Covered End says, don't underestimate him. He will adjust the plan, but he won't tell the customers, because to him, that's all we are. We pay our money to watch a football match at the Valley, take it or leave it.
He'll reduce costs perhaps, but he'll certainly increase losses because his revenues will go through the floor. Gates and TV money remain the biggest revenue items. He may not be able to realise the savings on the wage bill anyway because unless he's inserted relegation clauses in all the contracts that won't decrease a penny without sales - and players at League One clubs simply don't attract the transfer fees of those at Championship ones. It makes zero business or football sense for Charlton to be relegated.
He will realise savings on the wage bill if we are relegated, because he will sell all the players !
Instead of having 4/5 academy players in the 1st team and about 11 of the 18 man squad.
He'll probably have 8/9 academy players and 15 of the 18 man squad.
He'll see this as good news. The more academy players he can stick in the 1st team, the better chance he has of selling them. Lookman anyone ?
So he loses 4,000 S/T holders at £350 = £1.4M, plus £2M in TV revenue = £3.4M.
However, he sells a few players for £3M & also brings through another academy player, he can sell for £1M.
Profit !
RD does not give a flying #### about football, Charlton, the supporters.
He is an emotionless businessman trying to turn a profit/break even on the production and trading of footballers.
SURELY EVERYONE SHOULD GET THIS BY NOW. IT'S BEEN 2 YEARS !
Pretty sure the loss in TV revenue is £4M, so add that to the £1.4M of reduced season ticket revenue then remove a huge chunk of any commercial income (appreciating that this is quite small anyway) and I reckon our t/o would fall by say £5.5-£6M.
Fixed costs (rates, electricity etc will remain the same) and I am not sure who would buy people like Sarr (5 years left on contract) Bergdich (3 years left) etc etc.
Now take the academy which is going to take us to profit... Well with say £5M loss last season and £5M less turnover next then that is a £10M black hole. We close say £3M by reduced wages so have to sell £7M of talent. But where does the talent come from? What kids sign for third div CAFC with PL West Ham/Palace so close? Even if they join at 10, how many will really sign professional terms. So even with Cat 1, EPPP screws that 'gravy train'.
We are not viable in League One, period. I have seen nothing to convince me otherwise. I agree RD wants to break even but he will be even further away from this fantasy in League One.
My take, he bought us thinking the Championship was easier than it is and thinking he could loan us SL rejects and give us a decent shout of promotion. FFP was in place so he thought the division would even out and wage pressure would be increasingly downwards with the bridge to break even getting smaller and smaller. He also saw our academy and it's track record as a way of bridging this gap.
FFP was back tracked, he sold SL, he realised the chances to get promotion are slim to none without massive equity speculation and he is cutting costs like the last bunch did as he has lost interest, wants out and has us quietly on the market (this is pure conjecture on my part).
He is rich enough to keep us going but the real risk to us is he says sod it, I don't want to fund them anymore, I will cut my losses, stick them in admin, whack a claim in for the debt Strapix is owed and as major creditor force sales of capital assets like The Valley and Training ground to get his capital back.
Not saying it will happen, and for some reason I don't think he is that unpleasant to do so but it is possible.
Agree with most of this apart from putting us into administration. Admin is when you can't pay your debts and wipes out a lot of the debts. However, the debt accruing by CAFC is to Staprix, so why would he want to wipe out that debt/debt to himself ? Where's the benefit of wiping out money owed to yourself ?
If you are losing £5M per annum and want out but no one else wants in then sooner or later losing the money sunk is better than sinking yet more (see Bolton).
I have no idea on figures but saw Henry said the other day he spent £11M buying us. Say he has sunk a further £10M in the 2 years so he is £20-25M down. He may think a big sale of players in the summer, pocketing the cash and sticking us in admin / selling up shortly after is not a bad idea and if selling some fixed assets to get out on par completely helps him recover all his cash then from a pure investment basis that would make sense. There is no such thing as friendly debt (maybe except from fans like Richard Murrey)
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