Roland Duchatelets Motives

Leeds_Addick

After finding out that KM's web summit thing was on YouTube 2 weeks before we saw it I decided to try and dig up some more dirt on the pair of them.

I couldn't really find anything but what struck me was that everything that came up about Duchatelet (aside from football) was just about money. Not about electronics or his businesses, just about money.

A couple of links for you:

Here he is a keynote speaker at what seems to be some kind of business conference but he starts off talking about money, taxes, economy etc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPk0ERSPoLA

Here he is again on a programme about income
https://youtu.be/8zNEG5FXv8I?t=46m5s

And let's not forget that he owns 5 football clubs and apparently tried to add to that with Tours last season during the Andy Delort saga. None of which he seems to have any previous affiliation with aside from St Truiden?
If you think about foreign owners, generally they own clubs as some kind of social status symbol. A toy for them to play around with.
This doesn't seem to be the case with Duchatelet as he doesn't watch the games, doesn't seem to be interested in the football and he has been quoted on saying "The difference between me and other owners is that I don't care if we win".

So I started thinking about his motives and came across a couple of comments on reddit:





Now I know money laundering seems pretty far fetched. But it would explain what his motives were as it seems the man is totally obsessed with money. The issues with the transfer of Tony Watt add fuel to this fire.

I don't really know what/how he could be doing something like this but it has really got me thinking. Anyone have any ideas?

Now I'll just wait for someone to tell me that he's already stated his motives for owning us in an interview 2 years ago and that it's a totally believable one.

mascot88

We know something for sure... theres something abnormal about his approach the "I don't care if we win" comment once again confirming that... I mean FFS we have an owner who doesnt cares is he wins...

beyond parody... and VERY Charlton..

PeanutsMolloy

Holy cow. This guy is an Enneagram Type 5. Easily mistaken for a complete idiot.

Edit - If you're still awake at about 18 mins in, you'll see that about 95% of seats in the auditorium are vacant.

Addickted

Goldfinger

MountsfieldPark

One of Venanzi's (new owner of Standard Liege) more recent rants about RD was that, inspecting their books, he was astonished to find no forward financial projections for the coming months or year. He also said that there were highly elaborate schemes to avoid paying tax of a few thousand euros on player's wages, while simultaneously shelling out what Venanzi thought were huge agents' fees (hundreds of thousands of euros) without a quibble. Those may all seem to be disconnected, but it is possible to read a common thread, along the lines that, yes, it is all about money.

carly burn

Fella's a fruit cake......and I bet he's never kicked a football in his entire life!

InspectorSands

MountsfieldPark said:

One of Venanzi's (new owner of Standard Liege) more recent rants about RD was that, inspecting their books, he was astonished to find no forward financial projections for the coming months or year. He also said that there were highly elaborate schemes to avoid paying tax of a few thousand euros on player's wages, while simultaneously shelling out what Venanzi thought were huge agents' fees (hundreds of thousands of euros) without a quibble. Those may all seem to be disconnected, but it is possible to read a common thread, along the lines that, yes, it is all about money.

Is there a link for this? One of KM's justifications for the network was to avoid paying inflated agents' fees. (Or at least, inflated fees to agents *not* in RD's network...)

MountsfieldPark

http://forum.charltonlife.com/discussion/70630/roland-duchatelet

I must admit I missed that CL discussion completely at the time. There is a link in there to the original Flemish.

Actually, I'm not 100% certain how to translate the key Flemish verb "verantwoorden". Venanzi appears to say that "we found bills of 200,000 euros for players' agents were not recognised." What does "recognised" mean in context? Another meaning it has is "accounted for". The payments were not even accounted for. That makes more sense. He is contrasting that with the elaborate penny-pinching over staff wages.

Also, sorry that my memory played a trick: it wasn't elaborate schemes to avoid tax, just avoid paying slightly more wages.

Athletico Charlton

Lots of rich people love money without being money launderers. RD has been poor at running the club thus far but I don't believe it is to do with any criminality and I would suggest people are wise to be careful what they infer on an open forum.

IA

MountsfieldPark said:

One of Venanzi's (new owner of Standard Liege) more recent rants about RD was that, inspecting their books, he was astonished to find no forward financial projections for the coming months or year. He also said that there were highly elaborate schemes to avoid paying tax of a few thousand euros on player's wages, while simultaneously shelling out what Venanzi thought were huge agents' fees (hundreds of thousands of euros) without a quibble. Those may all seem to be disconnected, but it is possible to read a common thread, along the lines that, yes, it is all about money.

Venanzi seems to have a lot of rants about things that happened at a company while he was on the board of directors and which could have been discovered during a due diligence process. Meanwhile, Standard are mid-table, so I guess it's useful for him to blame the unpopular former owner.

3blokes

What eventually drove Roland out of SL? Was it continual supporter unrest or was it just financial considerations ultimately?
Not sure if that has ever been fully established, but I may be wrong.

GreenhitheRed

I think the whole network of clubs is a massive tax dodge scheme. I am no expert and could be barking up the wrong tree but IMO it can be the only explanation for the complete disregard he has to the day-to-day running of CAFC and the complete lack of interest with success on the pitch.

The comments from Venanzi at SL seem to lend some weight to this.

mogodon

Addickted said:

Goldfinger

Tinfinger more like

carly burn

I actually think the first clip is quite revealing.

He sees huge possibility in making money from innovations that already exist. Does he see us as one of those innovations?

carly burn

In that first clip Roland mentions a YouTube idea he had that never got off the ground.

Any one know how long he stuck with it before he decided to give it the elbow?

Weegie Addick

Addickted said:

Goldfinger

Blofeld

The_President

Weegie Addick said:

Addickted said:

Goldfinger

Blofeld

Boycott !