We have to acknowledge now that pre-seasons at Charlton under Duchatelet and Meire are not about refreshing the club for the season ahead but about the PR to help sell season tickets and wheeling and dealing to recover the operating costs lost by the mismanagement of the previous season.
Other clubs decide who to renew and who not to, who to sell and who to buy, in order to get a squad together so that they can actually have a pre-season, gel as a team and even try out new formations and tactics in readiness for the kick-off. All manage within budgets and most to a strategic plan that fits their club. They aim for small change and gradual improvement to they can be more competitive.
Under The Regime, we make a few cynically quick purchases to stimulate early interest at season ticket renewal and to give false hope that the 20 players who have left might be replaced by a smaller number but with as much or more quality. We then sell anyone who will attract a fee in excess of what we will pay for a player and hopefully enough in total to wipe out the operating loss. We are linked with loads of players for a month or two without seriously pursuing any and whilst we play out pointless friendlies where the manager's main objective is putting out 11 competitive players, often including several triallists at a time and loads of youth. In the final couple of weeks we scrape the barrel and bring in a few more so we can start the season. We begin thin on the ground but hopefully with fewer injuries than when we finished the season. Within a couple of months we are struggling and having to play youngsters and players out-of-position - problems that should have been addressed pre-season and which are blindingly obvious.
Does anyone really believe our squad of players are feeling pumped and like potential title winners after our pres-season and dramatic shrinking of the squad? Some of our Youth players may be getting excited by the prospect of first team football but the novelty of that will wear off quickly enough when we are losing and they are getting dogs abuse.
Meanwhile, all Meire and Duchatelet want to see is some of the youngsters getting decent write-ups and attracting fee-paying interest for January or the close season. Results? Look a bit concerned, say something positive about the long run and ignore. If it gets too bad, sack the manager and start again.
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I fear the worst but will go to see mates,and a few new grounds.
His ego cult can't/won't see their failure and they ain't going anywhere
Ps. Why has your gaff been painted claret and blue Cardinal ?
It's not to build a winning, promotion getting team. And I don't think it's to make money. Most if not all the player sales have been for small potatoes compared to our owner's wealth.
So, why....why does he want to own Charlton Athletic?
He wants to prove to himself (if no one else) that he can run Charlton successfully at break even.
He thinks he's a visionary and can achieve this with a Championship club, when no one else can.
He's already proved he can't because we've been relegated the same as every other club that breaks even.
He basically wants to achieve this by the development & sale of Academy players and by buying & selling other players for profit.
He doesn't care whether the first team loses or not and has said so.
To be honest, I personally feel that he'd be happier, if we didn't have a first team and he could just develop & trade players for profit.
The thing is, if it was that easy, every club would do it.
He's just a deluded, egotistical fool, meddling in a business that he doesn't understand, shielded by an incompetent, given the title of CEO, but without the ability.
We all just need to keep our fingers crossed that he dies soon.
Despite presenting this as revolutionary and novel the basic idea is that of a 'commune' - not of like-minded individuals but of similar status football clubs pooling their resources. This is not really surprising as RD was by his own admission heavily influenced by the late 1960s pan-European youth movement and its utopian dream of freedom, peace and love - from Paris to London to Amsterdam
He also, and this is the really bad news, founded a political party in Belgium in 1998 called Vivant (Voor Individuele Vrijheid en Arbeid in een Nieuwe Toekomst, ("for individual freedom and labour in a new future"). This party espoused visionary (read unworkable) tax policies which few Belgian voters believed in.
Are you starting to see the hideous pattern emerging?
Vivant has limped along ever since 1998 with RD still at the helm and with him no doubt believing that Vivant will one day be recognised as offering a new political future which will be embraced by Belgium and indeed the rest of Europe -
Vivant is funded by Duchatelet!
So, for 18 years Duchatelet has pursued a failing political vision in Belgium, has paid out of his own pocket for the privilege of doing so and shows no sign of walking away.
The man is quite clearly totally deluded but his successful business venture in electronic components allows him the luxury of watching on as his various pet enterprises stagger along with no real prospect of advancement.
In RD's mind the dream is still alive it's us who have to live out the Nightmeire.
He'd have had half a chance of achieving some of what you've said if he'd appointed a decent manager backed up by a good scouting system. He had the money to set this up with initial investment to then reap the dividends later on............but didn't bother.