Lee Bowyer pleads for ‘someone to give Charlton stability’ as former Swansea chairman is linked to club

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW
Charlton manager Lee Bowyer
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Charlton manager Lee Bowyer insists he has been told "nothing" about a fresh takeover of the stricken Championship club after former Swansea chairman Huw Jenkins confirmed an interest in buying the Addicks.

Jenkins revealed yesterday that he is one of "three or four" parties pursuing a takeover from East Street Investments (ESI), with ex-Watford owner Laurence Bassini another.

Jenkins said his £1million deal – which includes the standing arrangement to buy the stadium from former owner Roland Duchatelet – "hangs in the balance", with ESI under pressure to sell before being paying this month's bills.

"I can't tell you any more," Bowyer told Standard Sport after Charlton returned to socially-distanced training yesterday.

"Those things are happening behind the scenes, I try to keep my distance from it. My job is the team. Obviously for the club to move forward we need someone to give us some stability. At the moment, I don't know what's going on but if something happens hopefully it brings us stability. If not, I hope it gets resolved one way or the other with the people that are there at the moment, and we get stability that way. That's my only concern. I try to stay away from it if I can."

ESI's £1 takeover from Duchatelet in January is being investigated by the EFL, while majority shareholder Tahnoon Nimer has refused to inject any funds into the club while Southall remains on ESI's board, leaving Charlton in a state of limbo.

April's wages were paid without money from Nimer but the club has confirmed that he would need to inject funds to foot this month's bills, which are believed to total £400,000 and due this week.

"There's never really been any concern about people getting paid – I've had those assurances from day one – so hopefully that won't change," said Bowyer.

The manager also warned that relegating Charlton from the Championship on points-per-game would "destroy our club" ahead of next week's crucial vote of EFL clubs on whether to complete the season.

Photo: Getty Images
Getty Images

"With the uncertainty of what's happening behind the scenes, for us to be relegated when we haven't even played the full season would destroy our club financially," he said. "All the work we've done to rebuild this club in the two years that I've been here is going to be taken away from not really doing anything wrong. That can't happen. They can't just decide to ruin a football club because the virus means we've had to stop [playing]. Fine, but restart it."

Charlton returned to Sparrows Lane for training in groups of no more than five yesterday and Bowyer is hopeful of being back in to full-contact sessions by next week. "It was good, surprisingly good," he said. "It was enjoyable for us as coaches and the players all said they enjoyed it as well. They're in a good place, fitness wise, because all they've been doing is running.

"They're a bit rusty with the ball but that will come with time and I'm sure we'll get enough time to sort that problem out. But physically they're in good shape.

"I'd say [we need a] minimum four weeks of normal contact training. And the EFL agreed with that. On the managers call last week, they said they'd look to give three to four weeks of normal contact training, hopefully four. So that seems to be the agreement.

"They're hoping that only this week would be social distancing and then next week we'd go into Phase Two with bigger groups and contact training. We're in their hands but hopefully it'll happen next week."

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