CARD calls on Murray to speak to the fans

As expected, CARD have issued a statement today calling on the club's day-to-day leader, Richard Murray, to end all the speculation about the future of the club and address supporters before Saturday's home match against mighty Walsall. The statement, below, speaks for itself but it's high time we heard from the horse's mouth about the ongoing failure to strengthen the side, the exodus of our best players and the laughable number of rumours of what's happening in terms of sale of the club.

A CARD spokesperson said: “We need to hear from Richard Murray about the club’s immediate future. He said four years ago when Duchatelet took over that he would be responsible for the relationship with the fans and that he would speak on behalf of the board when appropriate. We feel it is only fair that we should give him the opportunity to do so. At the weekend manager Karl Robinson promised a takeover update this week, but there was nothing new about that in Murray’s latest comments."

“Holmes has gone and Konsa is likely to follow. We don’t expect Duchatelet to put in extra funds this month, but it can’t be right that the squad is weakened with no guarantee of a takeover. It makes no sense even in terms of getting the best price for the club, because he is making Robinson’s job of securing promotion more and more difficult."

”We want a guarantee that if Konsa goes without a takeover then a significant part of the fee will be made available to Robinson to strengthen the team. We also want a timeline for takeover negotiations with clarity about whether a deal is possible or likely before the end of January. We urge all concerned fans to come and hear what Murray has to say."

The spokesperson went on: “We have not staged any protests this season because we have been aware of takeover moves and did not want to do anything that might have affected a possible promotion push. The club has now damaged that prospect itself, so we are giving notice that the period of truce is over. We will not be organising anything inside the stadium on Saturday, but the gloves are coming off. Unless the situation is resolved, this is likely to be the start of an escalating series of lawful protests, both at The Valley and in Belgium. It’s now up to Murray to explain why that shouldn’t be the case.”

It's simply not good enough to use secrecy of takeover talks for not explaining anything to supporters about what's going on at the club when we can see the damage being done in front of eyes. We don't need to know names or terms, but an indication about timescales and a proper statement re intent for this season is the least we should expect. Duchatelet himself mentioned our promotion push in his last utterance in December when talking about Meire's escape and it was only then that he finally acknowledged ongoing takeover talks.

The club has become an absolute shambles during the last three years and we are now a national laughing stock. The flogging of our best players at a time when we are within realistic grasp of a play-off spot is criminal and an indictment on Duchatelet. All that guff for years about if we are competing in January. Yes he's selling but there is a link to what he takes out of the club and what someone is prepared to pay for it. To use his old family analogy, it's akin to Dad smashing up the family home before he deserts the children.

As usual there are far more questions than answers and we only have Richard Murray as the link (currently the missing link). Let's hope he gets up on his hind quarters on Saturday and tells the club's remaining supporters what on earth is going on.