Begs the question who selected the head coaches, if he left the management of the club to KM, or is it just another lie?
Don't think it's even worth analysing it that closely. RD and KM contradict each other all the time - the truth is presumably somewhere halfway between Roland's lies and Katrien's lies.
I suspect Katrien was given responsibility for recruiting coaches, with assistance from Roland, probably something like this:
RD: Katrien, I'm giving you full responsibility for selecting our new head coach. Pick anyone you like from the following shortlist -
“I never read that he [Powell] said that,” responded Duchatelet. “But if he did, it is certainly wrong.
First line and a lie
“I did discuss on occasions about players - there were also problems at the time with key ones who wanted to leave, like Yann Kermorgant.
Another lie. I believe Powell over RD any day, and Powell said Yann was having to hold on for the right deal. We still don't know to this day if the deal tabled to Yann was good enough or acceptable to him to stay. But what we do know is he wanted to stay.
This guy is just a tosser, through and through.
We all know he never told Powell to pick players Alex Dyer told us that after Powell left ...... Yann chose the money instead of signing the new deal , think what people need to remember is the Bournemouth deal was on the table before RD took over ....as Powell said the old owners had already said they were not going to offer Yann or Stephens new deals
Be interesting next week if he gets treated like Parker will do tomorrow ??
Funny, "We all know" actually seems to mean "I think" in this case. Did you ever learn the English language Colin?
“I never read that he [Powell] said that,” responded Duchatelet. “But if he did, it is certainly wrong.
First line and a lie
“I did discuss on occasions about players - there were also problems at the time with key ones who wanted to leave, like Yann Kermorgant.
Another lie. I believe Powell over RD any day, and Powell said Yann was having to hold on for the right deal. We still don't know to this day if the deal tabled to Yann was good enough or acceptable to him to stay. But what we do know is he wanted to stay.
This guy is just a tosser, through and through.
We all know he never told Powell to pick players Alex Dyer told us that after Powell left ...... Yann chose the money instead of signing the new deal , think what people need to remember is the Bournemouth deal was on the table before RD took over ....as Powell said the old owners had already said they were not going to offer Yann or Stephens new deals
Be interesting next week if he gets treated like Parker will do tomorrow ??
So, given your inside information, you are saying that Powell lied recently on TalkSPORT...
Of course, I can understand that SCP would not have the same insider access to his own conversations.
“I never read that he [Powell] said that,” responded Duchatelet. “But if he did, it is certainly wrong.
First line and a lie
“I did discuss on occasions about players - there were also problems at the time with key ones who wanted to leave, like Yann Kermorgant.
Another lie. I believe Powell over RD any day, and Powell said Yann was having to hold on for the right deal. We still don't know to this day if the deal tabled to Yann was good enough or acceptable to him to stay. But what we do know is he wanted to stay.
This guy is just a tosser, through and through.
We all know he never told Powell to pick players Alex Dyer told us that after Powell left ...... Yann chose the money instead of signing the new deal , think what people need to remember is the Bournemouth deal was on the table before RD took over ....as Powell said the old owners had already said they were not going to offer Yann or Stephens new deals
Be interesting next week if he gets treated like Parker will do tomorrow ??
comes across as a lying twat, but his point on FFP is a valid one.
It is a fair point that he thought FFP would mean other clubs couldn't spend more than they earn and that would help us.
But when the FFP rules changed Roland made no attempt to change his business plan. He can't just go on as he did before and moan that it's not fair.
He bought the wrong club.
I'm in two minds about FFP. On the one hand it's nice for us fans if there's a level playing field, it gives us lesser mortals a scintilla of hope.
On the other hand - and let's use the restaurant analogy (again):
One restaurant owner spends a fortune making his restaurant a very pleasant place to be; opens 7 days a week so that people can ring in to book a table; stocks up his cellar with the best wine; buys the best local produce; employs a Michelin-starred chef; top quality waiters; a qualified Sommelier; a Maître d' that knows what the hell they are doing; and has a maximum score under the local council's food hygenine scheme and the all-important linen tablecloths and napkins.
Another has a great venue. But he spends no money on decent food and drink; no one ever answers the phone or looks at emails; the chef is just out of college; the waiters don't speak English and don't even unscrew the top off the wine, let alone let it breathe or decant it; the food is so-so; the Maître d' used to be a paralegal and has no relevant skills; the table cloths are plastic while the napkins are paper serviettes and there are mouse droppings everywhere.
Which one deserves (and will) succeed?
Trouble is, under the current rules both fail. One collapses under a mountain of debt and the other withers away from lack of custom.
Duchatelet makes a fair point about the lunatic finances of English football but he has failed to adapt his original plan to the new situation. He doesn't want to be the first example, but will end up being the second instead.
The fact he mentions France shows what a doorknob he is, they used to have strict FFP rules but PSG and Monaco don't seem to be punished when they are clearly getting around them.
Begs the question who selected the head coaches, if he left the management of the club to KM, or is it just another lie?
Don't think it's even worth analysing it that closely. RD and KM contradict each other all the time - the truth is presumably somewhere halfway between Roland's lies and Katrien's lies.
I suspect Katrien was given responsibility for recruiting coaches, with assistance from Roland, probably something like this:
RD: Katrien, I'm giving you full responsibility for selecting our new head coach. Pick anyone you like from the following shortlist -
1. Karel Fraeye 2. Mr K Fraeye 3. Fraeye K, Esq
What's for sure is that Katrien had zero input on appointing Bob Peeters as manager. She was literally in tears when she was told it was happening. But, with regards to the idea to appoint the Upjest guy as our manager a month ago, I suspect (and this is simply a guess) that she actually played a big part in ensuring that it didn't happen and that Riga came back.
It must be tough for poor ickle Uncle Roly, no-one loves him (barring Katrien), not the fans, not the media, not the clubs that don't want his version of FFP and even those who (he thinks) seem to share his views.....
“All the other clubs who are more in line with our philosophy - that we want to pay a player not a money game but a football game, to show we have better coaches and an academy from a supporting side - they come and they buy away our players.
“That’s not fair. The Championship is anything but fair play. Due to this change in rule FFP isn’t there anymore in practise.”
A cynic, and lucky none of us would ever be such a thing, might think he expected the footballing universe to revolve around him, and is a bit miffed with reality. I half expect him to threaten to take his ball and....
comes across as a lying twat, but his point on FFP is a valid one.
It is a fair point that he thought FFP would mean other clubs couldn't spend more than they earn and that would help us.
But when the FFP rules changed Roland made no attempt to change his business plan. He can't just go on as he did before and moan that it's not fair.
He bought the wrong club.
I'm in two minds about FFP. On the one hand it's nice for us fans if there's a level playing field, it gives us lesser mortals a scintilla of hope.
On the other hand - and let's use the restaurant analogy (again):
One restaurant owner spends a fortune making his restaurant a very pleasant place to be; opens 7 days a week so that people can ring in to book a table; stocks up his cellar with the best wine; buys the best local produce; employs a Michelin-starred chef; top quality waiters; a qualified Sommelier; a Maître d' that knows what the hell they are doing; and has a maximum score under the local council's food hygenine scheme and the all-important linen tablecloths and napkins.
Another has a great venue. But he spends no money on decent food and drink; no one ever answers the phone or looks at emails; the chef is just out of college; the waiters don't speak English and don't even unscrew the top off the wine, let alone let it breathe or decant it; the food is so-so; the Maître d' used to be a paralegal and has no relevant skills; the table cloths are plastic while the napkins are paper serviettes and there are mouse droppings everywhere.
Which one deserves (and will) succeed?
Trouble is, under the current rules both fail. One collapses under a mountain of debt and the other withers away from lack of custom.
Duchatelet makes a fair point about the lunatic finances of English football but he has failed to adapt his original plan to the new situation. He doesn't want to be the first example, but will end up being the second instead.
I don't accept the debt argument in its entirety. Even in normal businesses, the innovators often fail and someone else or a rival comes along, picks up the pieces and makes a success of it. (By way of example, we've had 8 track vs 4 track cassettes; Betamax vs VHS; and LCD vs Plasma TVs; HD DVD vs Blue-ray and now regular hard drives vs SSDs vs cloud vs streaming.) Take building a power station: obviously there's huge amounts of up front funding with no income whatsoever for maybe a decade or so. But still some take the risk. Making progress is all about risk and inevitably some fail spectacularly. So we had the comedy Sinclair C5, but now we've got fantastic vehicles like the Tesla range and the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV with more to come.
If individuals want to risk their money on the promise of getting to the Premier League, why should anyone stop them?
What is wrong IMO is the lack of balance caused by the TV deals.
The Rat just does not get it does he, look at this statement:-
“I don’t know if you have photos of the stadium when I first visited it - I thought we had a kind of lake here, because the pitch was just water. “There was an investment of about £1million to have a very good pitch. But also we replaced all the seats in the stadium, we redid many of the boxes - so we invested quite a lot in the stadium. “We have invested a lot of money in the training ground too - like synthetic pitches. The second one is due to be finished soon.”
Ratters you're backing the wrong horse mate. The reality is this; Player investment, decent Players, who you have to pay good money for who generate good results are the ONLY thing that will get promotion or more importantly right now stave off relegation. Painting the stadium does not gain promotion. They are the rules of the game, you can be as maverick as you like and back your (inadequate) judgement, but you are so wrong and its bloody painful to watch you fuck up OUR club.
You really do not have a clue, we are fucked.
Also, either Powell is lying or The Rat Man is lying, historically Rattie (allegedly) has been less than economical with the truth, Powell is a man of honour, so Rat Boy you speak with forked tongue.
Here's another dose of reality. Roland please just sell up and go. Once this season is over, myself and thousands more supporters will not be renewing their STs while you and Katrien Liar are steering the good ship CAFC over the football equivalent of the Niagara Falls, even if we stay up by some miracle.
See its the hope that supporters cling onto that hurts, you twat. I really have never disliked any man as much as I dislike you, really!
comes across as a lying twat, but his point on FFP is a valid one.
It is a fair point that he thought FFP would mean other clubs couldn't spend more than they earn and that would help us.
But when the FFP rules changed Roland made no attempt to change his business plan. He can't just go on as he did before and moan that it's not fair.
He bought the wrong club.
I'm in two minds about FFP. On the one hand it's nice for us fans if there's a level playing field, it gives us lesser mortals a scintilla of hope.
On the other hand - and let's use the restaurant analogy (again):
One restaurant owner spends a fortune making his restaurant a very pleasant place to be; opens 7 days a week so that people can ring in to book a table; stocks up his cellar with the best wine; buys the best local produce; employs a Michelin-starred chef; top quality waiters; a qualified Sommelier; a Maître d' that knows what the hell they are doing; and has a maximum score under the local council's food hygenine scheme and the all-important linen tablecloths and napkins.
Another has a great venue. But he spends no money on decent food and drink; no one ever answers the phone or looks at emails; the chef is just out of college; the waiters don't speak English and don't even unscrew the top off the wine, let alone let it breathe or decant it; the food is so-so; the Maître d' used to be a paralegal and has no relevant skills; the table cloths are plastic while the napkins are paper serviettes and there are mouse droppings everywhere.
Which one deserves (and will) succeed?
Trouble is, under the current rules both fail. One collapses under a mountain of debt and the other withers away from lack of custom.
Duchatelet makes a fair point about the lunatic finances of English football but he has failed to adapt his original plan to the new situation. He doesn't want to be the first example, but will end up being the second instead.
Your only hope its to negotiate from a position of strength. Attempting to change the rules when you're bottom just seems like whinging.
Everything coming from the club will be bullshit and counter to the bad press they are receiving,
The geezer looks like a man who is either incapable of showing emotions or is a pathological liar who somehow has a really high intelligence and made big cash and can't stop trying to be cleverer than everyone else
Well, I would say that I agree with his criticism of the FFP thing, and BTW I could well imagine Peter Varney saying something similar if he were still our CEO, and we would all be furiously agreeing. Although @cafcfan is dead right that the imbalance of the TV deal is the real issue, and it is not clear if RD gets that point. Anyway, the problem is his apparent naive and arrogant view that he could simply persuade the toher Championship clubs to see it his way. This is what KM implied in her Dublin car-crash. He obviously instructed her to achieve his, and of course she got nowhere. At this point we should remind ourselves of his fiasco in the political arena. He may well have some decent intentions, but he does not seem to understand how to carry people with him.
As for the 'picking the team' thing; which of us who worked in the corporate world did not suddenly find themselves with a new boss, one who had very definite ideas that he or she was determined to implement? You then came under great pressure to be positive about these great new ideas, even if you had misgivings. Flag up doubts, and you would be labelled as a negative influence in various guises. I am sure this is what happened here, not least because RM indicated as much at the time. Technically, legally, RD may be right. Any emails may not say exactly "play Thuram" or whatever. But they may well say something like "I don't understand why you don't play Thuram". In terms of the pressure, it amounts to the same thing, and SCP was clearly the type who was going to fight his corner on principle. It's a fight you always lose. And the real losers are us.
The bit that most annoys me is his defence against this claim of interference of "allowing management to manage". As we have recently pointed out, it appears that he runs Melexis in a 'normal' way. That is to say, his CEO has been in the job for 12 years, before that she was 6 years as COO, and appears to have made semi-conductors her life's work. Ideally qualified, in other words. I want to ask him about the stark contrast with the appointments of KM and Fraeye, whose cvs are almost comically inadequate for the roles he gave them. How does he justify this? For me this is evidence of football being his plaything, the laboratory for mad experiments. Melexis is a publicly quoted company. This means that there are all kinds of corporate safeguards in place. He could not appoint KM to CEO of Melexis. The directors and shareholders would not wear it for a nanosecond.
He will now say that he has done his bit, he is "communicating" with the fans. A controlled monologue is not communication. The overwhelmingly negative response is entirely predictable.
The FFP stuff is the more important. He clearly thought in 2013-14 that the Football League would enforce it's own rules and a club like ours could prosper with a European style investment model. Not an unreasonable assumption. QPR ought for instance to have been relegated through several tiers based on the losses they posted. Instead of taking action though the FL threw the towel in.
Interesting to think where this change by the Football League leaves us re: RD being the owner. Will he sell rather than put more money in? Or will he still want to have a UK club in his roster, particularly one based in London?
Incidentally, Midtjylland did ok yesterday........On the Today Programme they carried a piece about them saying they had a Head Coach and the players brought into the club were pre-selected via a statistical analysis.
'what really happens is some of the clubs pay stupid wages to very average players'
I wonder what that's like Roland, rather than paying what I assume must be average wages to incredibly shit players like we do. Or maybe I'm wrong, maybe we just pay shit wages to shit players. Either way, I'll take the average mid-table option thanks.
Agreed Henry and there is no sign of him changing his business plan. Just him hoping the ffp rules change. And kermogant wanting to leave? Is that not a complete lie?
If FFP was in place would that really mean Charlton under these clowns would be competitive? Unlikely
Am I right in thinking he wasn't actually anywhere near the previous FFP limit in any case, so no wonder we're even further adrift now!
comes across as a lying twat, but his point on FFP is a valid one.
It is a fair point that he thought FFP would mean other clubs couldn't spend more than they earn and that would help us.
But when the FFP rules changed Roland made no attempt to change his business plan. He can't just go on as he did before and moan that it's not fair.
He bought the wrong club.
I'm in two minds about FFP. On the one hand it's nice for us fans if there's a level playing field, it gives us lesser mortals a scintilla of hope.
On the other hand - and let's use the restaurant analogy (again):
One restaurant owner spends a fortune making his restaurant a very pleasant place to be; opens 7 days a week so that people can ring in to book a table; stocks up his cellar with the best wine; buys the best local produce; employs a Michelin-starred chef; top quality waiters; a qualified Sommelier; a Maître d' that knows what the hell they are doing; and has a maximum score under the local council's food hygenine scheme and the all-important linen tablecloths and napkins.
Another has a great venue. But he spends no money on decent food and drink; no one ever answers the phone or looks at emails; the chef is just out of college; the waiters don't speak English and don't even unscrew the top off the wine, let alone let it breathe or decant it; the food is so-so; the Maître d' used to be a paralegal and has no relevant skills; the table cloths are plastic while the napkins are paper serviettes and there are mouse droppings everywhere.
“I never read that he [Powell] said that,” responded Duchatelet. “But if he did, it is certainly wrong.
First line and a lie
“I did discuss on occasions about players - there were also problems at the time with key ones who wanted to leave, like Yann Kermorgant.
Another lie. I believe Powell over RD any day, and Powell said Yann was having to hold on for the right deal. We still don't know to this day if the deal tabled to Yann was good enough or acceptable to him to stay. But what we do know is he wanted to stay.
This guy is just a tosser, through and through.
We all know he never told Powell to pick players Alex Dyer told us that after Powell left ...... Yann chose the money instead of signing the new deal , think what people need to remember is the Bournemouth deal was on the table before RD took over ....as Powell said the old owners had already said they were not going to offer Yann or Stephens new deals
Be interesting next week if he gets treated like Parker will do tomorrow ??
I don't accept the debt argument in its entirety. Even in normal businesses, the innovators often fail and someone else or a rival comes along, picks up the pieces and makes a success of it. (By way of example, we've had 8 track vs 4 track cassettes; Betamax vs VHS; and LCD vs Plasma TVs; HD DVD vs Blue-ray and now regular hard drives vs SSDs vs cloud vs streaming.) Take building a power station: obviously there's huge amounts of up front funding with no income whatsoever for maybe a decade or so. But still some take the risk. Making progress is all about risk and inevitably some fail spectacularly. So we had the comedy Sinclair C5, but now we've got fantastic vehicles like the Tesla range and the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV with more to come.
If individuals want to risk their money on the promise of getting to the Premier League, why should anyone stop them?
What is wrong IMO is the lack of balance caused by the TV deals.
While this is true for technology lack of regulation is impossible for many industries.
If banks were not regulated, no one would ever risk saving and we would have to get used to a cash only society. (As nearly happened in 2008 until our hapless government came to the rescue!)
Football is already highly regulated in a way that other industries are not. Players cannot switch employers at will. Contracts and transfer fees are controlled and scrutinised in ways that would be illegal in many circumstances. But without these rules the game we know would be unrecognisable.
FFP would prevent players being paid for with borrowed money and ensure they genuinely "belonged" to a club. I think this is in the same spirit as the regulations which already exist to prevent ringers.
Have only read the SLP articles but not the subsequent posts.
My thoughts are that RD will never move away from trying to break even regardless of the leeway that the current FFP rules allow a Club. And although this is an admirable stance in terms of accumulated debt, it means that under his stewardship our Club will never have a snowball's chance in hell of progressing onwards & upwards. End of. Is this what we want for CAFC ?
Secondly, if a lie detector test was taken by Roland and SCP in light of their recent statements regarding player selection, I know which "horse" I'd bet on....
I have a certain amount of sympathy with RD on the FFP issue, as it has to be remembered that the club is still losing money. While lots of daft decisions have been made on and off the pitch, even if we were well run we'd still be losing money.
We're competing with
a) clubs with parachute money b) clubs with owners prepared to spend significant sums of money c) clubs prepared to gamble on promotion with money they don't have
The flaw of his ownership is not that he hasn't spent enough, but rather he's spent his money terribly, on dreadful transfer and head coach decisions
“What will finally happen to the Championship is you will find most of the time, it is owners that are maybe Chinese or foreign. Is that a good evolution? I don’t know. I’m not so sure.Okay, I’m a foreign owner also - but Belgium is not so far away! It’s also a matter of culture, we share the same culture as an English culture.”
Is it only me that thinks there's a touch of racism here? Belgians are ok because Belgium is close to England and there's a similar culture so they don't really count as foreign. Chinese though? That's another matter, you wouldn't want a Chinese owner, would you? Thank you very much, Enoch Duchatelet.
Frankly Roly I'd far rather have a Chinese owner who actually cared about the club and saw fit to turn up and see what was happening now and again, than someone who lives just 250 miles away but who can't even be bothered to hang around to watch the team on a week when he's in the city. Someone who has so much in common with our culture, but who doesn't understand football, doesn't understand our league and crucially doesn't understand our club. Someone who is so stupid, that he thinks he can waltz in once a year give a load of old spin and tosh to a video camera and everything will be alright. Well it won't be alright. You're running our club into the ground. Get out and go!
I have a certain amount of sympathy with RD on the FFP issue, as it has to be remembered that the club is still losing money. While lots of daft decisions have been made on and off the pitch, even if we were well run we'd still be losing money.
We're competing with
a) clubs with parachute money b) clubs with owners prepared to spend significant sums of money c) clubs prepared to gamble on promotion with money they don't have
The flaw of his ownership is not that he hasn't spent enough, but rather he's spent his money terribly, on dreadful transfer and head coach decisions
True. But it is what it is now, whether he/we likes it or not. That's the rules of the game and if he doesn't like it, there's an offer to buy the club waiting for him to pick up.
It would be nice to think that with the FFP not delivering as RD planned and with us floundering towards League One, he might decide to chuck it all in as a bad job. It's not really working for all parties, and whilst I'm sure Roland will make sure he walks away with something from his inspirational time with us, he may well be beginning to consider that the climate in the UK is not right for his football vision. We can but hope and pray..
Agreed Henry and there is no sign of him changing his business plan. Just him hoping the ffp rules change. And kermogant wanting to leave? Is that not a complete lie?
If FFP was in place would that really mean Charlton under these clowns would be competitive? Unlikely
Am I right in thinking he wasn't actually anywhere near the previous FFP limit in any case, so no wonder we're even further adrift now!
According to the second article, the loss limit was £6million last season, and we recorded a loss of £3.8million, so I think that makes you right. The limit is £13million this season.
I tend to agree with some of his comments about FFP. However, he can't get those rules changed because none of the other clubs want to, and his business model won't work under the current legislation, so why stick around? Or to put it another way, please f**k off.
Comments
I suspect Katrien was given responsibility for recruiting coaches, with assistance from Roland, probably something like this:
RD: Katrien, I'm giving you full responsibility for selecting our new head coach. Pick anyone you like from the following shortlist -
1. Karel Fraeye
2. Mr K Fraeye
3. Fraeye K, Esq
Of course, I can understand that SCP would not have the same insider access to his own conversations.
Duchatelet makes a fair point about the lunatic finances of English football but he has failed to adapt his original plan to the new situation. He doesn't want to be the first example, but will end up being the second instead.
“All the other clubs who are more in line with our philosophy - that we want to pay a player not a money game but a football game, to show we have better coaches and an academy from a supporting side - they come and they buy away our players.
“That’s not fair. The Championship is anything but fair play. Due to this change in rule FFP isn’t there anymore in practise.”
A cynic, and lucky none of us would ever be such a thing, might think he expected the footballing universe to revolve around him, and is a bit miffed with reality. I half expect him to threaten to take his ball and....
Take building a power station: obviously there's huge amounts of up front funding with no income whatsoever for maybe a decade or so. But still some take the risk.
Making progress is all about risk and inevitably some fail spectacularly. So we had the comedy Sinclair C5, but now we've got fantastic vehicles like the Tesla range and the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV with more to come.
If individuals want to risk their money on the promise of getting to the Premier League, why should anyone stop them?
What is wrong IMO is the lack of balance caused by the TV deals.
“I don’t know if you have photos of the stadium when I first visited it - I thought we had a kind of lake here, because the pitch was just water.
“There was an investment of about £1million to have a very good pitch. But also we replaced all the seats in the stadium, we redid many of the boxes - so we invested quite a lot in the stadium.
“We have invested a lot of money in the training ground too - like synthetic pitches. The second one is due to be finished soon.”
Ratters you're backing the wrong horse mate. The reality is this; Player investment, decent Players, who you have to pay good money for who generate good results are the ONLY thing that will get promotion or more importantly right now stave off relegation. Painting the stadium does not gain promotion. They are the rules of the game, you can be as maverick as you like and back your (inadequate) judgement, but you are so wrong and its bloody painful to watch you fuck up OUR club.
You really do not have a clue, we are fucked.
Also, either Powell is lying or The Rat Man is lying, historically Rattie (allegedly) has been less than economical with the truth, Powell is a man of honour, so Rat Boy you speak with forked tongue.
Here's another dose of reality. Roland please just sell up and go.
Once this season is over, myself and thousands more supporters will not be renewing their STs while you and Katrien Liar are steering the good ship CAFC over the football equivalent of the Niagara Falls, even if we stay up by some miracle.
See its the hope that supporters cling onto that hurts, you twat.
I really have never disliked any man as much as I dislike you, really!
The geezer looks like a man who is either incapable of showing emotions or is a pathological liar who somehow has a really high intelligence and made big cash and can't stop trying to be cleverer than everyone else
As for the 'picking the team' thing; which of us who worked in the corporate world did not suddenly find themselves with a new boss, one who had very definite ideas that he or she was determined to implement? You then came under great pressure to be positive about these great new ideas, even if you had misgivings. Flag up doubts, and you would be labelled as a negative influence in various guises. I am sure this is what happened here, not least because RM indicated as much at the time. Technically, legally, RD may be right. Any emails may not say exactly "play Thuram" or whatever. But they may well say something like "I don't understand why you don't play Thuram". In terms of the pressure, it amounts to the same thing, and SCP was clearly the type who was going to fight his corner on principle. It's a fight you always lose. And the real losers are us.
The bit that most annoys me is his defence against this claim of interference of "allowing management to manage". As we have recently pointed out, it appears that he runs Melexis in a 'normal' way. That is to say, his CEO has been in the job for 12 years, before that she was 6 years as COO, and appears to have made semi-conductors her life's work. Ideally qualified, in other words. I want to ask him about the stark contrast with the appointments of KM and Fraeye, whose cvs are almost comically inadequate for the roles he gave them. How does he justify this? For me this is evidence of football being his plaything, the laboratory for mad experiments. Melexis is a publicly quoted company. This means that there are all kinds of corporate safeguards in place. He could not appoint KM to CEO of Melexis. The directors and shareholders would not wear it for a nanosecond.
He will now say that he has done his bit, he is "communicating" with the fans. A controlled monologue is not communication. The overwhelmingly negative response is entirely predictable.
He doesn't even employ Managers, he employs Head Coaches.
This might just be the beginning of the end
Interesting to think where this change by the Football League leaves us re: RD being the owner. Will he sell rather than put more money in? Or will he still want to have a UK club in his roster, particularly one based in London?
Incidentally, Midtjylland did ok yesterday........On the Today Programme they carried a piece about them saying they had a Head Coach and the players brought into the club were pre-selected via a statistical analysis.
I wonder what that's like Roland, rather than paying what I assume must be average wages to incredibly shit players like we do. Or maybe I'm wrong, maybe we just pay shit wages to shit players. Either way, I'll take the average mid-table option thanks.
If banks were not regulated, no one would ever risk saving and we would have to get used to a cash only society. (As nearly happened in 2008 until our hapless government came to the rescue!)
Football is already highly regulated in a way that other industries are not. Players cannot switch employers at will. Contracts and transfer fees are controlled and scrutinised in ways that would be illegal in many circumstances. But without these rules the game we know would be unrecognisable.
FFP would prevent players being paid for with borrowed money and ensure they genuinely "belonged" to a club. I think this is in the same spirit as the regulations which already exist to prevent ringers.
My thoughts are that RD will never move away from trying to break even regardless of the leeway that the current FFP rules allow a Club. And although this is an admirable stance in terms of accumulated debt, it means that under his stewardship our Club will never have a snowball's chance in hell of progressing onwards & upwards. End of. Is this what we want for CAFC ?
Secondly, if a lie detector test was taken by Roland and SCP in light of their recent statements regarding player selection, I know which "horse" I'd bet on....
We're competing with
a) clubs with parachute money
b) clubs with owners prepared to spend significant sums of money
c) clubs prepared to gamble on promotion with money they don't have
The flaw of his ownership is not that he hasn't spent enough, but rather he's spent his money terribly, on dreadful transfer and head coach decisions
Is it only me that thinks there's a touch of racism here? Belgians are ok because Belgium is close to England and there's a similar culture so they don't really count as foreign. Chinese though? That's another matter, you wouldn't want a Chinese owner, would you? Thank you very much, Enoch Duchatelet.
Frankly Roly I'd far rather have a Chinese owner who actually cared about the club and saw fit to turn up and see what was happening now and again, than someone who lives just 250 miles away but who can't even be bothered to hang around to watch the team on a week when he's in the city. Someone who has so much in common with our culture, but who doesn't understand football, doesn't understand our league and crucially doesn't understand our club. Someone who is so stupid, that he thinks he can waltz in once a year give a load of old spin and tosh to a video camera and everything will be alright. Well it won't be alright. You're running our club into the ground. Get out and go!
It's not really working for all parties, and whilst I'm sure Roland will make sure he walks away with something from his inspirational time with us, he may well be beginning to consider that the climate in the UK is not right for his football vision.
We can but hope and pray..
I tend to agree with some of his comments about FFP. However, he can't get those rules changed because none of the other clubs want to, and his business model won't work under the current legislation, so why stick around? Or to put it another way, please f**k off.