Producing this narrative has taken longer than I intended, but I have been afflicted by health challenges. Indeed, the NHS came to my rescue on Saturday with prompt and decisive action, telling me that I had 'dodged a bullet'.
A persistent belief of some Charlton fans is that prospective purchasers of the club are interested in a property play, although, of course, Roland currently owns The Valley and the training ground. The Valley is a very awkward site for development and it is in South London not North London. Watching University Challenge last night, I was struck by how many contestants representing UCL and King's Cambridge were from North London.
Conversion or demolition of The Valley would be expensive. However, the biggest problem is the constrained access which would make planning permission difficult to secure, plus the steep slope on part of the site.
Nevertheless, one group of owners, sometimes referred to in some quarters as 'the spivs' (shurely visionary entrepreneurs, ed) were backed by sufficient cash to contemplate building a soulless functional replacement stadium near the O2.
Read here about the secret plan to leave The Valley: https://www.votvonline.com/home/the-2017-18-blogs/22-12-how-jimenez-schemed-to-leave-the-valley/
There were furher relevations in a court case: https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/feb/09/charlton-khakshouri-jimenez-cash-modern-football
In summary, 'a man called Darius Khakshouri was awarded $4m in damages at the Royal Courts of Justice. In Court 9, Mr Justice Green found in favour of Khakshouri and against Tony Jimenez and Kevin Cash after the property developer claimed he had been deceived by the pair over a loan. That loan was of £1.8m, made in the autumn of 2013, in a last-minute bid to keep Charlton Athletic in business
Cash's business operations based offshore and split between trusts and holding companies. A similarly nebulous structure was found to lie behind Charlton’s ownership during Jimenez’s and Cash’s involvement at the club. In his ruling, Justice Green found that neither Jimenez nor Cash actually owned Charlton, another reason why their representations to Khakshouri had been deceitful.'
In 2019 the Court of Appeal ruled that Jiminez would have to reveal details of his tax affairs: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-47075503
Charlton does seem to be attractive to entrepreneurs who fall below the highest standards of propriety.
I'm fairly sure history has established that the spivs were backed by Cash in name only There was in truth no credible funding The whole project was predicated on selling the property play idea Which they achieved to a limited degree with the euro bungler who remains the freeholder of premises for which the development prospects are as you say limited In the short to medium term with a solid tenancy in place the freeholds are way down the list of priorities in what is required to restore CAFC to something like its historically familiar status
ReplyDeleteSorry to hear about your health scare over the weekend. Glad the local NHS worked well for you
ReplyDeleteThanks for doing these articles which must be a stress in the circumstances.