Mere days after much-maligned Charlton Athletic owner Roland Duchatelet had the brass danglies to suggest that “only a couple of hundred” are revolting against him, it’s been revealed that one of the beleaguered club’s former sponsors have agreed to throw their financial oomph behind the main anti-Duchatelet protest group.
Axis Europe sponsored the tunnel at The Valley for many, many years until their logo was removed in 2015.
Now, the company, owned by Charlton-supporting executive John Hayes, have agreed to buddy up with CARD (Coalition Against Roland Duchatelet) for the final game of the season – at home against Burnley this weekend.
Speaking to the CARD website, Hayes said:
I’m not prepared to do anything for the current regime. We used to be everyone’s second favourite club. Now we’re just a joke.
As a business, you couldn’t mess it up more than this if you had deliberately tried.
Axis have agreed to side with CARD as “official matchday sponsors” and will therefore assist with the mass protests that the group are planning to stage during the game following the club’s relegation to League One.
Thankfully, there’s only 200 of them, so the disruption should be minimal.
Meanwhile, according to the word on the wire, Duchatelet’s next move will be to hire a new manager – specifically Nebojsa Vignjevic, a former indoor footballer whose last posting was as coach of Hungarian side Nemzeti Bajnokság, owned by… you guessed it… Roland Duchatelet.
You’ve got to feel for Charlton fans. What a soulless cess-pit there beloved club is turning into.