The darkest hour: The story of ESI’s ownership of Charlton Athletic

On January 2nd, 2020, Charlton Athletic announced on their social media channels that East Street Investments had bought the club off of Belgian businessman Roland Duchatelet, ending his unpopular six year ownership.

Initially there was jubilation amongst the fans as details of those involved in the takeover emerged. A seemingly enthusiastic and ambitious chairman Matt Southall and directors Tahnoon Nimer and Jonathan Heller – the former being the majority shareholder and supposedly had quite the financial backing having connections with the Al Nahyan Abu Dhabi royal family, with a estimated fortune of $150 billion.

But unbeknownst to supporters, question marks were already being raised by employees inside the offices at The Valley.

“It was all very sudden,” Charlton Content Manager Olly Groome laughingly explained. “It was more confusion than excitement, especially when some of the names were mentioned, Matt Southall being the main one. There was a lot of googling going on in the office, asking ourselves ‘what qualifies this guy to be in that position?”

But as mentioned above, the Charlton fans were filled with excitement about the prospective ownership and the future ahead for the club. With the Roland Duchatelet era coming with signing multiple players from his network of clubs abroad, several managerial sackings, relegation and bizarre statements, the Addicks faithful were just glad that he had left the building and a fresh start was on the horizon.

However, when Olly Groome sat down for an interview with the new chairman, more red flags began to pile up:

The staff’s suspicions would be correct, as while then manager Lee Bowyer was given a three year contract extension and Andre Green, Aiden McGeady, Matt Smith and David Davis joined the club on loan in the January transfer window, the club were placed under a transfer embargo, although this knowledge was kept a secret from the press, supporters and even club employees.

Furthermore, Matt Southall and his young ‘hangers-on’ began turning up to the office in £100,000 Range Rovers – it would be later discovered that the club’s money had been spent on these cars, as well as a £12,500 a month flat for Southall. But despite all this, the impression was that everything was running normally. A day after transfer deadline day, the majority shareholder, His Excellency Tahnoon Nimer, would make his first appearance at The Valley for the club’s 2-1 win over relegation rivals Barnsley. It would also be his last and Groome couldn’t help but laugh as he described how the truth first started to come out.

“The day after the Barnsley game they all went out for a team meal at the O2 at Gaucho’s,” he said. “One of the ‘hangers-on’ from Matt took out the company credit card and Tahnoon was actually the one who said ‘no, no, no I’m paying for this. Why would you use that, the club’s money?’

“He was actually sat next to Tracey Leaburn (the club’s player liaison officer) which is why it kind of unraveled. She was talking to him about the flat and the range rovers and Tahnoon went ‘what?’ He knew nothing about them and that is when all the red flags started coming out.”

As the craziness off the pitch started to build up, the issues on the pitch were still ever-present. Charlton were struggling in the Championship relegation battle and were dropping points left, right and centre. The club fell into the drop zone after a 1-0 defeat to Middlesbrough on March 7th, which would be the final game before the season was stopped due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Two days later, ESI’s true nature was made public.

It started with Nimer announcing via his Instagram account that he was pulling out of the deal due to Southall spending club money on his luxurious lifestyle. What followed seemed like a never-ending back and forth argument with both sides flying accusation at one another and along with it some serious revelations, including evidence against Southall – as the documents about the flat were leaked by Nimer on Instagram, including the apartment’s address – and that ESI had failed to provide the EFL with sufficient funds to run the club, hence the embargo.

But perhaps the most dramatic days under ESI’s ownership was the night of March 12th, as several members of staff, including Groome and Leaburn, confronted Southall and Jonathan Heller in a two hour standoff inside The Valley boardroom.

“Tracey had been digging on a few things, trying to prove various different things that they were up to no good,” Groome continued. “She got people she knew she could trust involved, I was one of those. It was so secretive.

“I was following people around. Every time Shaun McHugh, the finance guy, got up and left I had to follow him and finally when Shaun went into the boardroom that’s when we sprung into action.

“I could hear Matt from downstairs saying “oh here we go!” so he knew something was going to happen. It went on for well over two hours. Matt called the police because we were ‘trespassing’, apparently and because of a ‘potential assault’ because Tracey came into the room and started shouting at him.

“We all got ‘sacked’ on the spot. It was all a bit of a blur really. Matt really showed himself up for who he is. Some of the comments were really snarky, personal comments about people. He showed that all he cares about is himself and his image. That’s all his life is.”

A week after the boardroom standoff, Matt Southall and Jonathan Heller were removed from the ESI board, with Nimer bringing in Romanians Claudiu Florica and Marian Mihail to replace them. It was made clear that Nimer was looking to sell the club and in June, just before the season restarted behind closed doors, the ownership of ESI was passed on to Manchester-based businessman Paul Elliott. The deal was put together by Nimer’s lawyer and club solicitor Chris Farnell, who has a history of being involved in club’s that have since gone bust – Salisbury City in 2014 and the infamous case of Bury in 2019.

“Paul Elliott barely knew who we were, but Chris Farnell used him as a puppet,” said Groome.

“We all knew what was going on. We knew Farnell was a wrong-un, Paul Elliott was full of rubbish and they were just using us to flip the club, strip all the assets that they can and then sell it on, which is exactly what he did with this private school he owned.

Groome then spoke about how he was supposed to sit down with Paul Elliott and do a similar interview than the one with Matt Southall, but it was never made public.

“I wasn’t particularly comfortable to do the interview because I didn’t want it to look like we’re welcoming him with open arms, but in the end I sat down with him over Zoom. He had hunting pictures on his office wall, holding up dead animals so I said you should probably take those down because people get a bit funny about that!

“I asked him about his interest in football and he said ‘oh I’ve been to Manchester City once or twice, the hospitality’s really good, I really liked the food,” he continued as he burst out laughing. “He was just a puppet on a string. That man was never going to be the owner of our football club, it was just complete nonsense.”

With nine games remaining in the 2019/20 Championship season, the odds were stacked against Lee Bowyer’s men to escape relegation. Charlton got off to a great start with 1-0 wins over Hull City and Queens Park Rangers and a draw with Cardiff. But then they suffered three defeats in a row to arch rivals Millwall, London rivals Brentford and Reading. Two draws with Birmingham and Wigan meant it went down to the final day away at champions Leeds United. The Addicks were battered 4-0 but with Wigan and Barnsley both drawing with Fulham and Brentford respectively, they were safe by two points. In the final minutes, Barnsley came up with a winner and Charlton were relegated straight back down to League One by one point.

The relegation was heartbreaking to take for everyone associated with the club and with the club already losing money over lockdown with nothing coming in, the uncertainty of the owners left people worrying for the future and whether Charlton would survive.

Tom Rubashow, the Head of Communications, said: “I think you just go into survival mode. The club had to survive and that involved various members of staff digging in and doing an excellent job.

“We didn’t have a CEO. We didn’t have an owner. But there was a couple of members of the senior management that really carried the group through that period. Marian Mihail, the Romanian, was excellent. I got to know and trust him and he seemed very focused on getting a solution.

I think I was less worried at that stage. I was more worried in March/April/May because there was no money coming in. Players differed their salaries, the manager as well. Staff were on furlough, so we were able to claim money to pay them. That was when I feared for the club more.”

The fanbase could almost do nothing but pray as the club headed towards its darkest hour. There was an unbelievable amount of uncertainty that supporters didn’t know what to think.

Michael King, a Charlton fan living in Finland, said: “It was the worst feeling in the world. It was a strange moment where, I’m embarrassed to admit that I was thinking who am I going to support now?”

Another fan from the Netherlands added: “When I found out ESI robbed the club with high end rental costs – even by London standards – and expensive cars, I was very angry then. I felt betrayed, they lied to the fans.”

As time was running for Charlton and administration was a serious possibility, they were dealt with more obstacles to find a new owner. On August 7th, Paul Elliott and Chris Farnell’s takeover of the club was terminated as they were both disqualified by the EFL as they were unsatisfied that they could run the club properly. Farnell was later suspended as the club’s solicitor, ending his involvement with the club.

But amidst the several fan protests such as the #SaveCAFC on Twitter, which gained national attention and storming Farnell’s offices and The Valley, Elliott was unwilling to let the club slip from his grasp and he claimed he was the rightful owner of the club.

He attempted to impose an injunction on ESI to prevent it from being sold to a third party. On September 1st, the injunction was rejected by Judge Richard Pearce, however the decision would be overturned six days later and would be re-evaluated in November. With the club on it’s knees, little to no money left and unable to strengthen a thin-boned squad after relegation, there was no hope that Charlton would survive for that long.

Then finally, on 23rd September 2020, with the club two or three days away from administration, Danish businessman Thomas Sandgaard stepped up and bought the club from ESI, ending their catastrophic tenure as owners of Charlton. Sandgaard agreed a 15-year leasing deal for The Valley and Sparrows Lane with Roland Duchatelet – as he still owned these assets under ESI- and took full control of the club, saving it from certain liquidation.

“We’r in a better position, the club has been saved,” Rubashow continued. “Immediately there was a real change. An ambition to do well, the willingness to spend money if the correct opportunities arose. The spending he’s done on the first team has been quite substantial and away from that he’s looking to get category one status with the academy.

“There’s stability and there’s an excitement for the future.”

In the present day, Sandgaard has been in charge of Charlton Athletic for over 18 months. After a slow start to last season, he was able to bring in players to help build a team that was competitive in League One, but narrowly missed out on the playoff spots by goal difference. This season, Sandgaard has been the third biggest spender in terms of transfers for 2021/22. Unfortunately, it hasn’t gone as he and the fans had hoped, with the club sat 15th in the table with five games to go. Manager Nigel Adkins was sacked in October and replaced with club legend and assistant manager Johnnie Jackson. While results have improved, it’s been a very underwhelming and frustrating season.

With the playoffs now impossible to reach and relegation no longer a concern, the club can now look ahead for next season in League One and hopefully make a challenge for promotion back to the Championship. While on the pitch it hasn’t gone to plan this year, one thing is for certain; their current owner is ambitious and wants to succeed. It’s looking a lot brighter now than what it was under East Street Investments for Charlton Athletic Football Club.