News today that the Valley Gold committee have approved the donation of £53,365 of members monthly contributions to the billionaire Roland Duchatelet. This will come as a bitter blow to protesting supporters and, I suspect, many of those who are still funding Valley Gold.
The VG Committee decided earlier this year to withhold payment to the club until June. The reason given at the time was because the Committee "could not overlook the concerns raised" following Katrien Meire's 'Dublin Vision' whereby Charlton fans came to watch stars of the future before they were sold on to Premier League clubs.
The more cynical amongst us understood that what this actually meant was that the two Supporter's representatives on the five person Committee were raising valid representative concerns of supporters and that the others on the Committee, including Regime Leaders, Katrien Meire and David Joyes, were content to go along with the deferral on the basis that it might stem a declining membership and shore-up payments in the interim period. They would also have been well aware that they could effectively force the payment in full in due course by out-voting the Supporters representatives 3-2.
Roll forward to June and again a deferral, although the Committee have now voted in favour of having all of the outstanding monies handed over, thank-you-very-much. The money will be used to pay for a variety of historical specified expenses such as £17,200 towards "Advanced Centre" costs and £17,325 to pay for hotel accommodation for U18/21 away matches. The "Advanced Centre" costs mean the Training Ground, an asset Duchatelet owns outright and from which he will benefit at the point of sale. There is an argument that if VG didn't meet some of these costs, then the expenditure wouldn't happen but I don't buy that.
Duchatelet has cashed in on Jordan Cousins and Callum Harriott in the close season (Poyet and Gomez before them) and he is now lining up Ademola Lookman and Esri Konsa as the next two. Funding the future player sales of tomorrow is a priority for Duchatelet because it allows him to cover his ongoing operating losses. Operating losses that are exacerbated by under-investment in the first team squad because he is not interested in long term financial planning to make the club successful through the first team. After all, a weakened first team enables him to put youngsters in the shop window.
Protesting supporters have slowly but surely taken much of what the Club has historically done away from The Regime;
- CARD have been giving away rival programmes for bigger games for some time after the Regime sacked the matchday distributors and it became difficult to even get one on the day. It also means we can read what's really happening and not just Regime PR.
- CARD have encouraged a boycott of club food and drink outlets and worked to promote alternatives outside the ground.
- Supporters have worked together to produce and sell their own 'Protest' shirt. - CAST have launched their own coach travel to away games because the club have managed to make a complete horlicks of it.
- A supporter has also withdrawn the rights for The Regime to play Valley Floyd Road over the tannoy before matches.
You have to wonder what will be next? Reviving Valley Gold will be high on the list of new owners and supporters when the time finally comes.....
The VG Committee decided earlier this year to withhold payment to the club until June. The reason given at the time was because the Committee "could not overlook the concerns raised" following Katrien Meire's 'Dublin Vision' whereby Charlton fans came to watch stars of the future before they were sold on to Premier League clubs.
The more cynical amongst us understood that what this actually meant was that the two Supporter's representatives on the five person Committee were raising valid representative concerns of supporters and that the others on the Committee, including Regime Leaders, Katrien Meire and David Joyes, were content to go along with the deferral on the basis that it might stem a declining membership and shore-up payments in the interim period. They would also have been well aware that they could effectively force the payment in full in due course by out-voting the Supporters representatives 3-2.
Roll forward to June and again a deferral, although the Committee have now voted in favour of having all of the outstanding monies handed over, thank-you-very-much. The money will be used to pay for a variety of historical specified expenses such as £17,200 towards "Advanced Centre" costs and £17,325 to pay for hotel accommodation for U18/21 away matches. The "Advanced Centre" costs mean the Training Ground, an asset Duchatelet owns outright and from which he will benefit at the point of sale. There is an argument that if VG didn't meet some of these costs, then the expenditure wouldn't happen but I don't buy that.
Duchatelet has cashed in on Jordan Cousins and Callum Harriott in the close season (Poyet and Gomez before them) and he is now lining up Ademola Lookman and Esri Konsa as the next two. Funding the future player sales of tomorrow is a priority for Duchatelet because it allows him to cover his ongoing operating losses. Operating losses that are exacerbated by under-investment in the first team squad because he is not interested in long term financial planning to make the club successful through the first team. After all, a weakened first team enables him to put youngsters in the shop window.
Protesting supporters have slowly but surely taken much of what the Club has historically done away from The Regime;
- CARD have been giving away rival programmes for bigger games for some time after the Regime sacked the matchday distributors and it became difficult to even get one on the day. It also means we can read what's really happening and not just Regime PR.
- CARD have encouraged a boycott of club food and drink outlets and worked to promote alternatives outside the ground.
- Supporters have worked together to produce and sell their own 'Protest' shirt. - CAST have launched their own coach travel to away games because the club have managed to make a complete horlicks of it.
- A supporter has also withdrawn the rights for The Regime to play Valley Floyd Road over the tannoy before matches.
You have to wonder what will be next? Reviving Valley Gold will be high on the list of new owners and supporters when the time finally comes.....
I'm certainly not happy that Valley Gold have handed over £50k to the regime - but not surprised given who is on the Committee....
ReplyDeleteI cancelled my subscription following NightMeire's vision that we should enjoy seeing the fruits of the Academy before they are sold onto the Premier league....
How any self-respecting Charlton supporter can remain as a VG subscriber is beyond me. Here's a idea...
Why not cancel your subscription and put the money aside in a savings account? When, and only when, the regime sell up then re-join Valley Gold and made a donation of the amount that you have saved up? Win-win. Valley Gold eventually gets the money but it won't go into the hands of this despicable regime to assist with their lunatic plans.
Well done to CARD for producing their own version of the match day programme, I couldn't read anything produced by the regime so my programme collection will remain stagnant until they disappear.
I have supported the ban on spending anything inside the Valley, in fact, I wouldn't willingly leave anything to the regime except the contents of one of the local hostelries!
Anyone who gives any money to the regime are merely extending the agony - they must be starved out of the Valley so don't buy a programme or a pie, a pint, have a punt nothing except the cost of getting in.
These b***ers must be starved out so that the club is taken over by people who care for the history, the ethos and the future or our beloved club.