As others have said, it seems very unlikely that we're anywhere close to a sale and I think that, by now, we all take LDT's usual words of sophistry with a pinch of salt.
The idea of three different prices having been agreed - with the 'International party' yet to even complete due diligence - is odd and also apparently inconsistent with the club's website, which records that "LDT said RD doesn’t want to lower the price." The latter point is really the nub of the matter, although how long can this idiot go on absorbing £10 million annual losses ? The monthly operating losses may have come down but the failure to secure our best players on extended contracts - a consequence of 18 months in limbo - means that Duchatelet has, Taylor aside, more or less run out of saleable assets.
I'm very grateful to our supporters on the Fans Forum and particularly to those like @Henry Irving, @razil and others who took the opportunity to subject LDT to (as one judge put it) "the purifying ordeal of cross-examination".
As others have said, it seems very unlikely that we're anywhere close to a sale and I think that, by now, we all take LDT's usual words of sophistry with a pinch of salt.
The idea of three different prices having been agreed - with the 'International party' yet to even complete due diligence - is odd and also apparently inconsistent with the club's website, which records that "LDT said RD doesn’t want to lower the price." The latter point is really the nub of the matter, although how long can this idiot go on absorbing £10 million annual losses ? The monthly operating losses may have come down but the failure to secure our best players on extended contracts - a consequence of 18 months in limbo - means that Duchatelet has, Taylor aside, more or less run out of saleable assets.
I'm very grateful to our supporters on the Fans Forum and particularly to those like @Henry Irving, @razil and others who took the opportunity to subject LDT to (as one judge put it) "the purifying ordeal of cross-examination".
The monthly losses - which is a misrepresentation of the cash flow anyway - may have “come down” but they will still be off the scale ridiculous for a club in League One.
How do we know this? Because in 2017/18 the operating loss was £13.3m - down from £14.3m a year earlier. Anyone who thinks that figure is now, say, £6m, would have to explain how LDT has overseen a cut of a third of all costs since last summer, given that revenue is basically flat. It is fanciful.
Apart from 2015/16, when operating costs ballooned to £25m, Charlton’s expenses have been pretty static since 2014. League One costs have been marginally higher than previously in the Championship at around £21m - before RD’s interest charges are taken into account.
Some of this “spending” is not real money spent in year - Naby Sarr’s transfer fee, for example, which is amortised over the five-year length of his contract rather than all being in 2015/16. Ditto Igor from 2014/15 onwards.
Even so, the idea that LDT’s cost-cutting has had a significant impact on the finances is about as likely as the claim on the side of Boris’s bus.
it is very unlikely you can make much impression in League One without dramatically slashing wages - which means player wages. Hence unless we are promoted it seems inevitable the contract round will be used to drastically prune the squad.
There are plenty of players of whom fans may say that’s not disastrous, while others will be a significant loss, but overall the likely consequence of a meaningful cut in staff costs is bound to be a fall in quality.
Maybe I'm just a cynical hack but the Fox and Sky reports both look to be lifted from the same press release which has Tom Rubinstein's finger prints all over it.
Why is the club so keen for the world to think a take over is imminent when clearly, it is not?
Do people genuinely and seriously buy into this fiction that this LDV Vans fella regurgitates on a monthly basis? The reason why he keeps peddling this utter tripe is because he reads this forum and knows that people get really excited about the fairly tales and yarns he spins! It’s the same rubbish that we’ve been hearing time and time and time again, and yet people pitch up to these masquerades of a meeting and treat LDV Vans like he’s the love child of the despicable Jim White! It’s beyond any sense of normality and comprehension that he’s even given the time of day! We’ve had this bull for over 12 months now; starting with the complete farce that was the Australian ‘bid’, through to fictitious British bidders, bankers, and now another overseas interested party! Laugh, I nearly went to Ethiopia! You’ll forgive me for being aghast at this latest tripe, but experience has proven that LDV Vans is taking us all for a ride under the behest of our tyrant of an owner! Always been a game, always will be a game to these clowns. I’ve said it time and time again, it’s Duchatelet ‘payback’, and the last year or so has proved that!!!
Not sure if anyone has picked up on this from the official minutes;
“Alan Dryland (German Addicks) said he feels sympathetic towards RD, he said the club are losing £10m a year and that still 10,000 turn up to hate him. He asked what the attraction is? He said no-one is winning from it”
Firstly, there’s a German Addicks? Really?
Secondly, why on earth do they have sympathy with RD? Or is that just a poor choice of wording in the minutes?
Thirdly, is there any prospect of them goose stepping into Belgium again anytime soon and handing out some slaps?
Maybe I'm just a cynical hack but the Fox and Sky reports both look to be lifted from the same press release which has Tom Rubinstein's finger prints all over it.
Why is the club so keen for the world to think a take over is imminent when clearly, it is not?
Concerning my "sympathy" for the Owner - at the meeting I prefaced my remark with a tongue-in-cheek reference to Stockholm Syndrome. RD is a man of 72 in apparently robust health who has €1.5 billion to his name. I really don't think he needs my sympathy, genuine or otherwise.
We all know that only one man can fix CAFC's dire and wholly avoidable situation. Reduce the cost of the club to a realistic level and it can be sold in a minute. Such interested parties as there may or may not be have doubtless incurred considerable expenses so far without any benefit and that is at least in part what keeps them at the Owner's table. As for the rest of us, we know the S.P. only too well. This is one man's problem to be solved, and that man can save himself £10 million a year at the stroke of a pen.
How on earth can 3 different prices have been agreed with 3 separate parties?
If this was true (which i doubt) and you were one of the 3 parties, the first thing you'd be on the phone asking was 'am i paying the lowest price, and if not why have you accepted a lower offer from one or both of the other 2 parties'.
How on earth can 3 different prices have been agreed with 3 separate parties?
If this was true (which i doubt) and you were one of the 3 parties, the first thing you'd be on the phone asking was 'am i paying the lowest price, and if not why have you accepted a lower offer from one or both of the other 2 parties'.
I doubt it is 100% true but my guess is that he would say that that prices have differing front payments and contingency payments.
In reality I think there is both an element of the money men not being willing to pay the inflated prices and the brokers "agreeing" a price and then looking around for people willing to pay it, hoping to get their fee.
Duchatelet has, as usual, created a mess out of what could have been so simple.
1612, 10 witches from Pendle Lancashire are hanged after being found guilty of witchcraft.
Alice Nutter was an ancestor of mine.
Just saying.
" For whene the Brekksitters resolve to move heaven and bringe this land to a new worlde and the frakkers shall undermine all goode things only then shall the darke one arise from Europe's cockpit and put an ende to thy suffering and turmoil. Only then will the heartache endeth for the downtrodden folk in the Valley of the Blessed and great shall be the rejoicing."
Another "Nice and Accurate Prophecy" from the old girl!
Oh sorry, this was Agnes Nutter, not your esteemed ancestor #Wheresmeticket.
Apologies and acknowledgements to Messrs Pratchett and Gaiman
Not sure if anyone has picked up on this from the official minutes;
“Alan Dryland (German Addicks) said he feels sympathetic towards RD, he said the club are losing £10m a year and that still 10,000 turn up to hate him. He asked what the attraction is? He said no-one is winning from it”
Firstly, there’s a German Addicks? Really?
Secondly, why on earth do they have sympathy with RD? Or is that just a poor choice of wording in the minutes?
Thirdly, is there any prospect of them goose stepping into Belgium again anytime soon and handing out some slaps?
I do find this a bit bizarre. Like @Razil was there representing the Swedish Addicks. I will put myself forward to represent the French Addicks. Anyone else care to join in?
Not sure if anyone has picked up on this from the official minutes;
“Alan Dryland (German Addicks) said he feels sympathetic towards RD, he said the club are losing £10m a year and that still 10,000 turn up to hate him. He asked what the attraction is? He said no-one is winning from it”
Firstly, there’s a German Addicks? Really?
Secondly, why on earth do they have sympathy with RD? Or is that just a poor choice of wording in the minutes?
Thirdly, is there any prospect of them goose stepping into Belgium again anytime soon and handing out some slaps?
I do find this a bit bizarre. Like @Razil was there representing the Swedish Addicks. I will put myself forward to represent the French Addicks. Anyone else care to join in?
I'll head up the Colombian Addicks...an opportunity not to be sniffed at
Not sure if anyone has picked up on this from the official minutes;
“Alan Dryland (German Addicks) said he feels sympathetic towards RD, he said the club are losing £10m a year and that still 10,000 turn up to hate him. He asked what the attraction is? He said no-one is winning from it”
Firstly, there’s a German Addicks? Really?
Secondly, why on earth do they have sympathy with RD? Or is that just a poor choice of wording in the minutes?
Thirdly, is there any prospect of them goose stepping into Belgium again anytime soon and handing out some slaps?
I do find this a bit bizarre. Like @Razil was there representing the Swedish Addicks. I will put myself forward to represent the French Addicks. Anyone else care to join in?
I'll head up the Colombian Addicks...an opportunity not to be sniffed at
Robbie I own more houses than Liverpool council Fowler to give the managers job a crack.
1612, 10 witches from Pendle Lancashire are hanged after being found guilty of witchcraft.
Alice Nutter was an ancestor of mine.
Just saying.
" For whene the Brekksitters resolve to move heaven and bringe this land to a new worlde and the frakkers shall undermine all goode things only then shall the darke one arise from Europe's cockpit and put an ende to thy suffering and turmoil. Only then will the heartache endeth for the downtrodden folk in the Valley of the Blessed and great shall be the rejoicing."
Another "Nice and Accurate Prophecy" from the old girl!
Oh sorry, this was Agnes Nutter, not your esteemed ancestor #Wheresmeticket.
Apologies and acknowledgements to Messrs Pratchett and Gaiman
We have "Nutters" in our family, going back generations! 😉
Maybe I'm just a cynical hack but the Fox and Sky reports both look to be lifted from the same press release which has Tom Rubinstein's finger prints all over it.
Why is the club so keen for the world to think a take over is imminent when clearly, it is not?
Not sure if anyone has picked up on this from the official minutes;
“Alan Dryland (German Addicks) said he feels sympathetic towards RD, he said the club are losing £10m a year and that still 10,000 turn up to hate him. He asked what the attraction is? He said no-one is winning from it”
Firstly, there’s a German Addicks? Really?
Secondly, why on earth do they have sympathy with RD? Or is that just a poor choice of wording in the minutes?
Thirdly, is there any prospect of them goose stepping into Belgium again anytime soon and handing out some slaps?
I do find this a bit bizarre. Like @Razil was there representing the Swedish Addicks. I will put myself forward to represent the French Addicks. Anyone else care to join in?
Im half Spanish, I’ll do there. Can I claim expenses for a factfinding mission, two weeks in September would be convenient.
As others have said, it seems very unlikely that we're anywhere close to a sale and I think that, by now, we all take LDT's usual words of sophistry with a pinch of salt.
The idea of three different prices having been agreed - with the 'International party' yet to even complete due diligence - is odd and also apparently inconsistent with the club's website, which records that "LDT said RD doesn’t want to lower the price." The latter point is really the nub of the matter, although how long can this idiot go on absorbing £10 million annual losses ? The monthly operating losses may have come down but the failure to secure our best players on extended contracts - a consequence of 18 months in limbo - means that Duchatelet has, Taylor aside, more or less run out of saleable assets.
I'm very grateful to our supporters on the Fans Forum and particularly to those like @Henry Irving, @razil and others who took the opportunity to subject LDT to (as one judge put it) "the purifying ordeal of cross-examination".
The thing is there is an accountability gap here. Sure it was a takeover update but generally there is an area that no one takes responsibility for and that is the strategic management of the club.
This isn't down to Steve Gallen, he is the head scout, nor is it down to Bowyer who manages the team. LdT ducks responsibility for this area saying his remit is sale of the club, and I feel it is up to us to point out the mismanagement continues possibly for different reasons, but the man responsible for many decisions in this area comes nowhere near the FF. On one hand things have got better because the strategic management is distance and hands off (non existent), on the other clearly the club is in stasis while it is sold, throwing ambition and the opportunity Bowyer represents out with the bathwater..
I don't think LdT should be given a free ride on this whatsoever, even though the mismanagement has decreased/changed with the departure of Meire, and by some very good fortune in getting Bowyer in - lets face it every managerial appointment bar one when we had a CEO has been on a range of horrific to very 'effing' average.
Under LdTs stewardship short termism is rife. If things don't go well with players not signing new deals (Fosu, Bauer, Aribo, Veto), and a heavy reliance on loans (Cullen, Belick, Purrington) for our first 11 (have I missed any?), and uncertainty around Bowyers deal, could mean in coming months even our League 1 status is in serious jeopardy next year
Not sure if anyone has picked up on this from the official minutes;
“Alan Dryland (German Addicks) said he feels sympathetic towards RD, he said the club are losing £10m a year and that still 10,000 turn up to hate him. He asked what the attraction is? He said no-one is winning from it”
Firstly, there’s a German Addicks? Really?
Secondly, why on earth do they have sympathy with RD? Or is that just a poor choice of wording in the minutes?
Thirdly, is there any prospect of them goose stepping into Belgium again anytime soon and handing out some slaps?
I do find this a bit bizarre. Like @Razil was there representing the Swedish Addicks. I will put myself forward to represent the French Addicks. Anyone else care to join in?
I'll head up the Colombian Addicks...an opportunity not to be sniffed at
Not sure if anyone has picked up on this from the official minutes;
“Alan Dryland (German Addicks) said he feels sympathetic towards RD, he said the club are losing £10m a year and that still 10,000 turn up to hate him. He asked what the attraction is? He said no-one is winning from it”
Firstly, there’s a German Addicks? Really?
Secondly, why on earth do they have sympathy with RD? Or is that just a poor choice of wording in the minutes?
Thirdly, is there any prospect of them goose stepping into Belgium again anytime soon and handing out some slaps?
I do find this a bit bizarre. Like @Razil was there representing the Swedish Addicks. I will put myself forward to represent the French Addicks. Anyone else care to join in?
I'll head up the Colombian Addicks...an opportunity not to be sniffed at
Swedish Addicks established 2005, some have supported us since 1960s, the current Chairman (who I know well and have visited several times in Stockholm and vice versa, in fact he's over now for the Gills game) since 1978, think they have 40 paid members. Shouldn't they be represented on the FF? Not sure about ze Germans, but the more the merrier in my book.. we having an 'exec' meeting tonight (pub crawl in Greenwich)
German Addicks' first match was in May 2003. There are 5 in the group and generally when they're here all of them attend. They have covered 13 matches this season, including Wycombe away recently. They will be here for Rochdale, and two of them will be at PoTY - come along and say hello. Play-off plans are also being made. One of the guys has a chalet in his garden and this serves as club house and museum. I hope to attend the 2019/2020 season's planning session which will take place on 22 June, two days after the fixtures are published. I was there for the 2017 edition - these guys are brilliant!!
I have absolutely nothing against either the Swedish Addicks or German Addicks being represented but it's a bit bizarre especially in German Addicks case when they only have five members, albeit members who have attended thirteen more matches than I have this season. I'm sure there are Charlton supporting families on here, mine included, with more members but no direct representation. As I said I just find it a bit odd.
Comments
The idea of three different prices having been agreed - with the 'International party' yet to even complete due diligence - is odd and also apparently inconsistent with the club's website, which records that "LDT said RD doesn’t want to lower the price." The latter point is really the nub of the matter, although how long can this idiot go on absorbing £10 million annual losses ? The monthly operating losses may have come down but the failure to secure our best players on extended contracts - a consequence of 18 months in limbo - means that Duchatelet has, Taylor aside, more or less run out of saleable assets.
I'm very grateful to our supporters on the Fans Forum and particularly to those like @Henry Irving, @razil and others who took the opportunity to subject LDT to (as one judge put it) "the purifying ordeal of cross-examination".
How do we know this? Because in 2017/18 the operating loss was £13.3m - down from £14.3m a year earlier. Anyone who thinks that figure is now, say, £6m, would have to explain how LDT has overseen a cut of a third of all costs since last summer, given that revenue is basically flat. It is fanciful.
Apart from 2015/16, when operating costs ballooned to £25m, Charlton’s expenses have been pretty static since 2014. League One costs have been marginally higher than previously in the Championship at around £21m - before RD’s interest charges are taken into account.
Some of this “spending” is not real money spent in year - Naby Sarr’s transfer fee, for example, which is amortised over the five-year length of his contract rather than all being in 2015/16. Ditto Igor from 2014/15 onwards.
Even so, the idea that LDT’s cost-cutting has had a significant impact on the finances is about as likely as the claim on the side of Boris’s bus.
it is very unlikely you can make much impression in League One without dramatically slashing wages - which means player wages. Hence unless we are promoted it seems inevitable the contract round will be used to drastically prune the squad.
There are plenty of players of whom fans may say that’s not disastrous, while others will be a significant loss, but overall the likely consequence of a meaningful cut in staff costs is bound to be a fall in quality.
Why is the club so keen for the world to think a take over is imminent when clearly, it is not?
“Alan Dryland (German Addicks) said he feels sympathetic towards RD, he said the club are losing £10m a year and that still 10,000 turn up to hate him. He asked what the attraction is? He said no-one is winning from it”
Firstly, there’s a German Addicks? Really?
Secondly, why on earth do they have sympathy with RD? Or is that just a poor choice of wording in the minutes?
Thirdly, is there any prospect of them goose stepping into Belgium again anytime soon and handing out some slaps?
Concerning my "sympathy" for the Owner - at the meeting I prefaced my remark with a tongue-in-cheek reference to Stockholm Syndrome. RD is a man of 72 in apparently robust health who has €1.5 billion to his name. I really don't think he needs my sympathy, genuine or otherwise.
We all know that only one man can fix CAFC's dire and wholly avoidable situation. Reduce the cost of the club to a realistic level and it can be sold in a minute. Such interested parties as there may or may not be have doubtless incurred considerable expenses so far without any benefit and that is at least in part what keeps them at the Owner's table. As for the rest of us, we know the S.P. only too well. This is one man's problem to be solved, and that man can save himself £10 million a year at the stroke of a pen.
If this was true (which i doubt) and you were one of the 3 parties, the first thing you'd be on the phone asking was 'am i paying the lowest price, and if not why have you accepted a lower offer from one or both of the other 2 parties'.
In reality I think there is both an element of the money men not being willing to pay the inflated prices and the brokers "agreeing" a price and then looking around for people willing to pay it, hoping to get their fee.
Duchatelet has, as usual, created a mess out of what could have been so simple.
Just hope its sooner rather than later.
Sell the club lock stock and barrel for £7 million. Pay off the current charges on the assets with said £7 million.
RD gets £6 million a year for the first 10 years we are back in the prem. Everyone's a winner. Free unicorns for all :-)
Another "Nice and Accurate Prophecy" from the old girl!
Oh sorry, this was Agnes Nutter, not your esteemed ancestor #Wheresmeticket.
Apologies and acknowledgements to Messrs Pratchett and Gaiman
I do find this a bit bizarre. Like @Razil was there representing the Swedish Addicks. I will put myself forward to represent the French Addicks. Anyone else care to join in?
This isn't down to Steve Gallen, he is the head scout, nor is it down to Bowyer who manages the team. LdT ducks responsibility for this area saying his remit is sale of the club, and I feel it is up to us to point out the mismanagement continues possibly for different reasons, but the man responsible for many decisions in this area comes nowhere near the FF. On one hand things have got better because the strategic management is distance and hands off (non existent), on the other clearly the club is in stasis while it is sold, throwing ambition and the opportunity Bowyer represents out with the bathwater..
I don't think LdT should be given a free ride on this whatsoever, even though the mismanagement has decreased/changed with the departure of Meire, and by some very good fortune in getting Bowyer in - lets face it every managerial appointment bar one when we had a CEO has been on a range of horrific to very 'effing' average.
Under LdTs stewardship short termism is rife. If things don't go well with players not signing new deals (Fosu, Bauer, Aribo, Veto), and a heavy reliance on loans (Cullen, Belick, Purrington) for our first 11 (have I missed any?), and uncertainty around Bowyers deal, could mean in coming months even our League 1 status is in serious jeopardy next year
German Addicks' first match was in May 2003. There are 5 in the group and generally when they're here all of them attend. They have covered 13 matches this season, including Wycombe away recently. They will be here for Rochdale, and two of them will be at PoTY - come along and say hello. Play-off plans are also being made. One of the guys has a chalet in his garden and this serves as club house and museum. I hope to attend the 2019/2020 season's planning session which will take place on 22 June, two days after the fixtures are published. I was there for the 2017 edition - these guys are brilliant!!