‘Severely unfair’: Charlton staff send open letter to Roland Duchatelet after owner reneges on staff bonuses

While things have been going south at Charlton ever since Roland Duchatelet bought the club at the beginning of 2014, this week may mark a new low for his ugly spell as owner.

Duchatelet, a Belgian multimillionaire who owns a network of football clubs across Europe, is currently engaged in protracted negotiations with an Australian consortium of investors over selling the club. In the meantime, he has forced the club to enact severe cost-cutting measures, including discontinuing free breakfasts for academy players and restricting bottled water to the first team only.

Under Duchatelet’s ownership, Charlton have been relegated from the Championship to League One, saddled with a disastrous transfer policy and hit with an extensive fan boycott over his deeply unpopular approach to running the club.

Now, as part of his ongoing cost-cutting measures, Duchatelet has told club staff that they will not be receiving incentivised bonuses previously promised to them. Earlier this week, The Daily Mail reported that Charlton employees are considering legal action against him as a result.

In response to his decision to renege on their bonuses, Charlton’s administrative staff have issued an open letter to Duchatelet in which they express their “extreme disappointment” at what they call his “severely unfair treatment of loyal staff whose hard work and dedication have not been rewarded as promised”.

Open letter from Charlton staff to Roland Duchatelet in full

Dear Mr Duchatelet,

We wish to express our extreme disappointment at your decision not to pay hard-working staff the money that had been previously promised based on our performances this year.

The work produced by staff, who dedicate their lives and go above and beyond to do their best for Charlton Athletic Football Club, is dependent on a large amount of goodwill.

Many members of staff willingly dedicate more time than is contractually necessary in what have been increasingly tough conditions because we take great pride in working for the club and its supporters.

However, that goodwill has been seriously eroded by what we regard as severely unfair treatment of loyal staff whose hard work and dedication have not been rewarded as promised.

Having met as a group on Wednesday morning, the unanimous feeling amongst staff was that of anger and upset at both your decision and the lack of previous communication surrounding the money that we were due to be paid on Tuesday, July 31st.

As staff, we will continue to fulfil our contractual obligations to the best of our abilities, but we are also considering our next steps to ensure payment of the bonuses as promised.

Sincerely,

Administrative Staff

Charlton Athletic Football Club
The Valley

Charlton protest group CARD (the Coalition Against Roland Duchatelet) have called for a demonstration in solidarity with staff ahead of Fleetwood Town’s visit to The Valley this weekend.

PROTEST: CARD calls solidarity demo with staff for Fleetwood game. pic.twitter.com/rcDHJDHYDM

— CARD (@CharltonCARD) August 22, 2018

‘Utterly shambolic’

Meanwhile Matthew Pennycook, the Labour MP for Greenwich and Woolwich, has tweeted in support of Charlton staff and called on Duchatelet to sell the club as soon as possible “The situation at #CAFC is utterly shambolic and it now appears that staff at The Valley are also being targeted,” he said.

“Fans are telling me that they’re genuinely concerned about the future viability of the club if the takeover process fails. Enough is enough Roland Duchatelet, just go.”