Warning, if, like me, you tend to gloss over sentences containing words like "X-Fab, in the Federal Free State of Thuringia" because they sound like the start of a ridiculously far-fetched Batman back-story, please don't. As preposterous and nonsensical as some of the following sounds, please try to suspend credulity. Because this is important.
Sometimes a watershed moment arrives. We've reached one now.
Roland Duchatelet is a smart business man. He has what I call sapiential authority: he commands authority and exudes leadership not by what he does or what he says, but by what he thinks. So it's no surprise that he created an enormously successful business and became a millionaire many, many times over. He founded Melexis, a multi-national semi-conductor business; a TV channel, TVLokaal.com; Epiq, which produces "electronic systems"; and X-Fab, which runs semi-conductor manufacturing businesses in the Federal Free State of Thuringia. He started off a smart guy; he's now a smart, rich guy.
But, like many smart, rich people, who are surrounded by people who tell him all day, every day how great he is, he has become convinced he is. And, to show off his intellectual capacity, he has set up a political party, centred around ideas for which he claims credit, such as a "basic income" (not to be confused with a minimum or living wage - in his proposal, everyone gets the basic income; those that need it, use it; those that don't need it, get it anyway). His party and its political beliefs failed. This has to hurt him. It hasn't necessarily taken a huge financial toll; but it has surely hit his pride. His party is a failure. And remember "Roland doesn't do failure".
So, he needs a very public way to demonstrate his intellect. After all, he's still very rich, he is still surrounded with yes-men who tell him how great he is and he's still convinced his, unique (yes, that word!) way of doing things is right. So he has chosen a very public means of demonstrating his brain-power. He's bought football clubs: Charlton, STVV, Carl Zeiss Jena, Ujpest and Alcorcon, carefully chosen because (brace yourself) they're all expendable. The footballing success of any one of these clubs demonstrates, conclusively, that Duchatelet is a 21st century genius. But, the demise of any of these clubs is not going to cause a ripple in football. Frankly, who's going to care if Ujpest goes bust, if Alcorcon gets relegated, if Carl Zeiss Jena is bankrupt... if Charlton Athletic is closed down for ever?
So, he's banked on a bit of noisy, public success, somewhere, at the risk of the quiet demise and ruin elsewhere. In short, if, say, STVV win the European Cup in ten years, but, say, Charlton cease to exist, what's his legacy? That's right - he'll be remembered as the man that beat the football system and turned a nothing club into world-beaters. Does he care if one of his clubs goes bust? Who knows? But I care.
So, he's launched his vanity project of sharing football resources around some clubs. But he will have done it with plenty of contingency. A hierarchy of success, if you like. His three-step plan seems to go something like this.
Plan A: Buy a club, reduce its costs, pool resources and watch it succeed. But, if it doesn't, ditch plan (a) and move on to...
Plan B: Reduce every cost in the club to the bare minimum, but continue to invest in youth players, so that they can be liquidised. But if that doesn't show a return...
Plan C: Asset strip, exit.
Plan A failed in his first season. We're in B right now. C's next. And, to make sure we're all clear on this, it's a one-way plan. The only way to move from B is to C. We cannot move back to A. Not now.
So why did I say we are at a watershed moment? Simply because the club seems to be moving into the terminal phase of Duchatelet's plan. Plan A failed, but that didn't matter, because we have slipped neatly into Plan B, where he could see some kind of financial return in the medium-long term. But when Plan B fails (and again, let's be clear, not selling Lookman this month will be a clear-as-daylight sign that B is failing; and the Valley with 20,000+ empty seats on a match-day is a sign that Plan C is the only option) we are at the end. As soon as he starts to formulate plans for Orient-style tower blocks either side of the Jimmy Seed Stand, we are doomed. As soon as the measuring equipment goes up in the West Stand Car Park, to mark out starter homes, we're doomed. As soon as the back of the Covered End is seen as a industrial unit opportunity, we're doomed. Everything is lost, unless the protests succeed.
We all have a choice. Support CARD and end this ridiculous, painful experiment, being played out at our expense. Or don't support CARD, and see us disappear, very soon, permanently. i don't want to see the Valley reduced to being a building site and Charlton being reduced merely to memories. Good luck to everyone who makes the right choice.
One last thing. Charlton's a scruffy, medium-sized, football club in South London. It's friendly. It's a family club. To quote Douglas Adams, it's "mostly harmless". But the most important word I can use to describe it is... "ours". Let's get it back.
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Comments
Fwiw, I think he has only 49.8% of FCCZ Jena
Until this season, the future has seemed to be a bleak place where Charlton can't win a game. Right now, the future's looking even bleaker: with no Charlton at all.