Peter Varney will not be offered a position by Thomas Sandgaard following his Charlton Athletic takeover

Peter Varney will not be handed any role at Charlton following Thomas Sandgaard’s takeover of the club.

The Addicks’ former chief executive had played his part in the American-based Dane acquiring the SE7 outfit – putting him in touch with the South London Press to go public on his desire to buy it.

Sandgaard has already admitted he struggled to get connected to the various parties he needed to negotiate a deal with.
He had previously talked about Varney potentially have a part to play moving forward.

Varney was chief executive of Charlton between 1997 and 2008 before becoming vice chairman until 2012. It was his call to bring in Chris Powell as boss and he also oversaw a spate of player signings that culminated in the Addicks romping to the League One title in 2012.

“Thomas has made clear that he will be very hands on as chairman, CEO and sole director,” said Varney. “And he will run the club day to day.

“I said to him that it is 100 per cent right that he moves forward in the way that suits him, everyone is behind him and wants him to succeed.

“In my view the club and team is in a similar state to that I found in January 2011 and I hope for his sake, and ours as fans, that being largely USA based, he can implement the cultural and structural changes now needed for the club to progress.

“I met Thomas for 90 minutes yesterday (Tuesday) and I appreciate his genuine appreciation of the role I played in his acquisition of the club.

“After all the trauma associated with [Roland] Duchatelet and ESI ownerships, we finally have stability in the club. And in Thomas Sandgaard we have an owner that the fans can relate to and one who has big ambitions for the club.”

Sandgaard told the South London Press last week about how the South London Press coverage of him helped to open doors to purchase Charlton. Duchatelet still owns The Valley and Sparrows Lane training ground.

“I remember speaking to Peter at the time about my frustration in terms of being able to get hold of the different parties. I had various people trying to reach out – including my attorneys to Roland Duchatelet’s attorneys. But no-one wanted to call me or any of my friends back.

“I made the decision to try and put the word out publicly and Peter told me a good place to start [with the South London Press].

“A nice side-effect to it was the way the fans responded with me going public. It wasn’t the intention but was fantastic to see how the fans got behind me. It built some good momentum. There has been a lot of positivity which we can build on.”