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The sale of Charlton Athletic in September 2020 was meant to bring about the end of years of bad management, but that definitely hasn’t been the case.
It’s been said more about this one club than most of their ‘rivals’, but the arrival of a new owner in September 2020 was supposed to herald the beginning of a new era for Charlton Athletic.
Thomas Sandgaard ended a nine-month spell during which the club was kicked from pillar to post after former owners East Street Investments – who themselves came to The Valley after detested former owner Roland Duchatelet just a few months earlier – collapsed around the club’s ears.
With Charlton relegated from the Championship at the end of the 2019/20 season, a very public falling-out between former majority shareholder Tahnoon Nimer and executive chairman Matt Southall led to Paul Elliott purchasing ESI in June 2020. But after a number of individuals failed the EFL’s Owners’ and Directors’ Test, the club had to be put back up for sale again, with a rumour circulating that they may even be expelled from the EFL if a transfer of ownership was not successfully completed.
As such, the arrival of Sandgaard felt like something of a breath of fresh air, but any hopes that the club could just get back to the business of operating normally have proved somewhat premature. Sandgaard tried and failed to reunite the club with ownership of its stadium and training ground – both still owned by Duchatelet – while the team continued to stagnate on the pitch, finishing just below the League One play-off places at the end of the 2020/21 season.
And off the pitch, the eyebrow-raising moments started to escalate. In August 2021, Sandgaard took the unusual step of releasing what he described as a ‘fight song’ for the club called ‘Addicks To Victory’, which was subsequently released onto Apple Music and Spotify. Those who want to hear it and feel that they can do so without cringing themselves inside-out can do so here.
Such a venture could be dismissed as harmless eccentricity in splendid isolation, but this hasn’t really been possible. In December 2021, it was confirmed that Sandgaard’s son had been given a job as the club’s director of analytics despite a perceived lack of qualifications for the position, while it was also rumoured that staff found themselves often dealing with Raelynn Maloney, Sandgaard’s American girlfriend. According to reports from the Evening Standard:
‘Some working on the non-football side of the business were increasingly reporting to Raelynn Maloney, Sandgaard’s American girlfriend, who sent daily emailed requests and instructions to staff across various areas of the business, despite having no formal role. Sources close to the club said at least one staff member reported Maloney to the Home Office, believing she lacked the right to work legally in the UK.’
All of this came amid rumours – accounts for this period will not be available until the summer 2023 – that the club was continuing to lose money hand over fist as the team laboured in League One. Manager Lee Bowyer had quit in March 2021 to take over the vacant position at fellow basket case Birmingham City, and since then the managerial position has become something of a revolving door. Nigel Adkins lasted until that October, Johnnie Jackson until May 2022. In the meantime, Charlton finished last season 13th in League One.
This season initially didn’t bring about much of an improvement. Charlton won just five of their first 23 games of the season, with yet another manager, Ben Garner, being relieved of his duties following a 1-0 home defeat by Cheltenham Town at the start of December. But under his replacement Dean Holden, Charlton have revived their on-pitch fortunes.
A run to the EFL Cup quarter-finals ended in defeat against Manchester United after a win over Brighton and Hove Albion on penalties in the previous round, while a run of five wins from seven games has lifted them to mid-table. Being 13 points off the play-off places with 16 to play makes further advancement look unlikely this season, but it’s already an improvement on the 18th place that they occupied on Christmas Day.
But as ever in recent years at Charlton, events on the pitch have to take a back seat to machinations behind the scenes. Following the sacking of Garner, the Charlton Athletic Supporters Trust issued a statement calling on Sangaard to sell the club. He appears to have listened to this, but as all Charlton supporters already know all too well, that sort of news is only welcome if the new buyers are going to be any good, and there has certainly been little sign that the club going up for sale yet again has rendered Charlton any less chaotic.
It was initially confirmed that Sandgaard was set to sell the club to a group fronted by Charlie Methven, best known as the raspberry-trousered goon in Sunderland Til I Die, but it has now been reported that Sandgaard has performed a U-turn on this deal and is now talking to someone else. The exact reasons for this remain unknown (‘more money’ doesn’t seem like an unreasonable guess), but Sandgaard told the South London Press that, “There were some very specific terms that were very clear at the end of January and coming into February that they didn’t comply with.”
It was reported that Methven’s group had agreed to pay £8.5m to purchase a 90% stake in the club including an £850,000 deposit. They were furious at what they perceived as Sandgaard betraying an exclusivity deal that they had signed by withdrawing on the day that it was due to be completed and issued a statement on the matter:
‘Our group refutes Thomas Sandgaard’s claim last Friday February 10 that we are in breach of the signed agreement to buy Clear Ocean Capital, the holding company of Charlton Athletic.
‘We were expecting to complete the deal last Thursday February 9: a substantial deposit had been paid, the agreed purchase price had not changed, the money required was in the relevant bank accounts and Owners and Directors Test applications had been lodged with the EFL.
‘Our clear legal advice is that we are still in exclusivity to complete the purchase and we still expect to do so imminently, as stipulated by the agreement of December 20 signed by Mr Sandgaard.’
Legal action has been threatened, but this doesn’t seem to have deterred Sandgaard from continuing. The new group is led by Marc Spiegel, an American businessman and founder of the recycling company Rubicon. With Methven’s group already putting in place a senior management team consisting of chief operating officer Jim Rodwell, finance director Ed Warrick, technical director Andy Scott and new manager Dean Holden in December, this only means even more upheaval for the club. Rodwell, Warrick and Scott have already left again. There are fears that Holden, who has at least managed to stabilise the team on the pitch, could yet join them.
Sandgaard’s choice of a replacement was certainly a curious one. Peter Storrie was believed to be the selection as CEO for the club under Spiegel’s ownership, and he has now been given the job on a consultancy basis by the current owner. Storrie was the CEO of Portsmouth from the start of 2002 until 2010, a period during which the club got into the Premier League and won the FA Cup before collapsing into one of the most serious financial crises that any club in this country has ever been through.
Under Storrie’s stewardship, Portsmouth became the first Premier League club to enter into administration and suffer a points deduction. Three relegations in four seasons followed, leaving them in League Two, a position from which the club has only ever partly recovered.
In November 2011 Storrie and former club owner Milan Mandaric were cleared of tax avoidance charges relating to the transfer of Amdy Faye and Eyal Berkovic. Having had previous spells working with West Ham United, Southend United and Notts County, Storrie is also the Executive Vice-Chairman of Australian club Central Coast Mariners.
As ever in the recent history of Charlton Athletic, nothing seems straightforward. Legal action over Charlie Methven’s attempted takeover could yet derail a season that has started to get back on track, and if the manager does end up joining the others who’ve left The Valley recently, well, it’ll be back to square one on that front, too.
It seems difficult to believe that this was a club that in this century spent seven years in the Premier League. Charlton Athletic as a club are capable of supporting this. It’s likely this knowledge that leads to no shortfall of people wanting to step in and have a go. Unfortunately, this may also be one of the biggest reasons why the club has found itself in such a perpetual mess.
