Charlie Methven: New ownership structure at Charlton Athletic provides great strengths

Charlie Methven reckons that Charlton Athletic’s new ownership structure provides “great strengths”.

The Addicks announced on Friday that a takeover of the club had been completed. Global Football Partners are the new owners via their UK subsidiary – SE7 Partners. There are seven individuals with at least a five per cent stake – Gabriel Brener, Joshua Friedman, Warren Rosenfeld, Singapore-based ACA Football Partners, Munir Javeri, Marc Boyan and Methven, who was previously part owner of Sunderland.

In recent times Charlton have tended to be owned by one person. US-based Dane Thomas Sandgaard sold the club to SE7 Partners and prior to the disastrous and shambolic spell under East Street Investments it was Belgian Roland Duchatelet, who still owns the freehold to The Valley and Sparrows Lane training ground.

“If you look back to when Charlton were really successful they had a fairly broad base shareholding group,” Methven told the South London Press. “That brings with it great strengths.

“It’s not solely one person on the hook for the financial support, that’s one big strength. Another is that each individual person has their own strengths and experiences they can bring to the table.

“The biggest single strength is that not one single person is in a position simply to say: ‘It’s my way or the highway’.

“Football clubs are very multi-faceted enterprises. You have got your retail operation, hospitality operation, the performance side, ticketing side – it is an awful lot of decisions for one person to get right on their own.

“It’s asking a lot for that one person to be that all-singing, all dancing type of one-man show. Very often the people who come into football ownership don’t come from industries that have anything to do with any of those facets. So to expect them to learn everything about six or seven

disciplines and then make all the decisions themselves, that is really challenging.

“We have a breadth of experience and also a breadth of capital base.

“The amount of money to run Charlton is considerable at the moment and for one man that is a big, big challenge. For seven people? Much less so. It’s not going to keep any of our shareholders up at night, their particular share and funding is not a big worry for them. Obviously they would like the numbers to support the football club as low as possible. The club is not going to be under financial stress and than enables executives to make long-term plans because they are not constantly worried if they are going to meet payroll.

“I’m not saying Charlton have been worried about that – in fact Roland Duchatelet and Thomas Sandgaard have been absolutely impeccable in this respect. They have paid very considerable bills and you have to respect that.”