Peter Varney to lead Charlton recovery

I finished working today at a quarter to ten this evening and I am getting dirty looks for blogging whilst I enjoy the fag-end of the day with Mrs Peeps. I don't want any sympathy for my long hours, but merely want to explain the delay in responding to the potentially massive Charlton news that began to trickle through mid-afternoon whilst I was in the middle of a meeting of significantly less importance.


The club have gone public in terms of announcing a takeover deal subject to successful completion of Due Diligence prior to Christmas Eve. The key piece of information in all this is that the buyers are a consortium lead by former CEO-extraordinaire and die-hard Addick, "Sir" Peter Varney.


As New York Addick says, we need to exercise some caution here because we are easy target right now and Richard Murray has been under increasing pressure to pass the baton to someone else and may have had to be less choosy in order to sell the club on. Irrespective, the good news is that Varney has brokered the deal and whoever Richard Murray is passing the reigns to, we must acknowledge that he's done the best for the club that could reasonably have been expected. When this is all finally said and done, I suspect we will hear plenty about how Richard Murray turned down numerous offers which may have been financially attractive to him but which may have left him feeling uneasy about the medium to long-term future of the club.


Varney was the front-man in a previous consortium bid over a year ago which didn't come off. The Rumour Mill at the time had and "Irish consortium," a "Dubai-based investment business" as well as "Local Businessmen" in the frame. Speculation will no doubt be rife between now and Christmas Eve as the spotters are out looking for evidence of Due Diligence. Knowing how much Varney knows about Charlton and how transparent I believe Richard Murray will have been in lining this up, I can't believe this will fail on Charlton's part and if it's the second time of asking from these buyers, then you have to think the deal will get done. 


The timing for Christmas Eve is also near perfect. A possible present for all of us and maybe investment just as the January transfer window opens.


Ere we go, 'ere we go, 'ere we go!


P.S. Russia for the 2018 World Cup? Nah.