That was the reaction of former Palace-supremo Simon Jordan to the 'defence' that Roland Duchatelet attempted to put forward on Talk Sport radio this week for the parlous state of Charlton Athletic FC as we approach the fifth anniversary of his reign.
Simon Jordan is a man despised in these parts for all sorts of reasons, not least because of what has come out of his mouth at times in the past. However, it has to be said, he has called this perfectly. He ridiculed the various excuses that Duchatelet offered-up including the line that prospective buyers have been getting cold feet because of results and supporter protests. He went on to say that due diligence was a critical activity and because Duchatelet hadn't done any when he bought the club, he had failed to understand what the club was all about. The fact that Duchatelet has since been largely absent has compounded the issue and his reliance on the woefully inept Katrine Meire meant he only got her sugar-coated version of her latest cock-up which invariably blamed the customers for complaining about the number of chips per portion. He still thinks she did a wonderful job despite all of the evidence and all of the witnesses to the exact opposite.
Not understanding what he was buying or not wanting to understand was clearly not a concern for the arrogant Belgium who very quickly had Meire telling anyone who wanted to know that "the owner does it his way" and that we would have to lump it. Not carrying out due diligence was also borne of the arrogance of a billionaire who probably saw little point wasting half-a-million on the exercise when he was only paying £18m for the club (inc £4m debt). How we could do with a similar laissez-faire attitude as he seeks to get out, you know, agreeing a price based upon what it's worth or maybe a bit less for a quick sale. Instead we have him looking desperately to save face on the whole sorry fiasco by getting an unrealistically high price that might him sell a story back home about how he didn't lose out on yet another of his long list of business successes.
Jordan also made the astute observation that "everyone around it (the club) seems to be disassociated and disenfranchised." Two superbly picked adjectives that really sum it up for me today.
As for his view that prospective buyers might be driven on price and determination based upon results from week-to-week, you can only wonder at how despondent they must be at the moment as yet another false dawn disappears over the horizon.
Simon Jordan is a man despised in these parts for all sorts of reasons, not least because of what has come out of his mouth at times in the past. However, it has to be said, he has called this perfectly. He ridiculed the various excuses that Duchatelet offered-up including the line that prospective buyers have been getting cold feet because of results and supporter protests. He went on to say that due diligence was a critical activity and because Duchatelet hadn't done any when he bought the club, he had failed to understand what the club was all about. The fact that Duchatelet has since been largely absent has compounded the issue and his reliance on the woefully inept Katrine Meire meant he only got her sugar-coated version of her latest cock-up which invariably blamed the customers for complaining about the number of chips per portion. He still thinks she did a wonderful job despite all of the evidence and all of the witnesses to the exact opposite.
Not understanding what he was buying or not wanting to understand was clearly not a concern for the arrogant Belgium who very quickly had Meire telling anyone who wanted to know that "the owner does it his way" and that we would have to lump it. Not carrying out due diligence was also borne of the arrogance of a billionaire who probably saw little point wasting half-a-million on the exercise when he was only paying £18m for the club (inc £4m debt). How we could do with a similar laissez-faire attitude as he seeks to get out, you know, agreeing a price based upon what it's worth or maybe a bit less for a quick sale. Instead we have him looking desperately to save face on the whole sorry fiasco by getting an unrealistically high price that might him sell a story back home about how he didn't lose out on yet another of his long list of business successes.
Jordan also made the astute observation that "everyone around it (the club) seems to be disassociated and disenfranchised." Two superbly picked adjectives that really sum it up for me today.
As for his view that prospective buyers might be driven on price and determination based upon results from week-to-week, you can only wonder at how despondent they must be at the moment as yet another false dawn disappears over the horizon.
Did the fans protests help when the club were facing relegation?
ReplyDelete"Katrien is a fantastic woman" Roland told Jim White. What did she do when the club were facing relegation? Oh yes, that's right. She went on holiday.