“See you in the Premier League in two years.”
That’s the text Charlton Athletic owner Thomas Sandgaard sent his Crystal Palace counterpart Steve Parish after completing his takeover of the club in 2020.
Fast forward nearly three years… the Addicks are no closer to getting out of League One than when Sandgaard joined and now he’s heading for the exit.
The League One season ended on May 7 and Charlton’s 10th place finish, 15 points off the play-offs, confirmed they will be playing in the third tier for the seventh time in the last eight seasons.
The days of being a Premier League staple at the start of the century are now a distant memory.
So what has gone wrong? Danish-American businessman Sandgaard fell into the trap of over promising and under delivering, not even managing to get to the play-offs during his tenure.
His promises not only included getting to the Premier League, but European football in the next 15 years.
Those statements will go unfulfilled with his time at Charlton ending in the very near future following months of takeover talks.
As first revealed by the South London Press, a consortium involving American billionaire Joshua Friedman – and led by former Sunderland director Charlie Methven – have this week had an offer accepted of around £12million to take over the club.
That deal does not include the stadium, The Valley, or their training ground in New Eltham, which remain under the ownership of former owner Roland Duchatelet.
Nothing has been straightforward at Charlton in recent years. The Methven-led takeover remains subject to approval by the EFL and with other parties still showing an interest, the circus at Charlton will likely roll on through the summer.
What seems all but certain is that Sandgaard’s time is up. He saved the club back in September 2020 after Roland Duchatelet’s botched sale to East Street Investments [ESI] put the Addicks on the brink of extinction.
Belgium businessman Duchatelet sold Charlton to ESI for £1, but the takeover was never sanctioned by the EFL and the group failed the owners’ and directors’ test.
Sandgaard, to his credit, wrestled control from ESI, but the bright future Charlton fans hoped for looks a long way off.
Duchatelet is by no means long forgotten, though, as he still has his grip on the club’s main assets.
One of Sandgaard’s many promises was to bring the stadium and training ground back under the ownership of the club, but that remains a pipe dream.
Charlton were forced to leave The Valley in the 1980s, ground sharing at Selhurst Park and Upton Park, before returning in 1992, and memories of the fight to have a home are still fresh for a generation of fans. One they’d never envisaged having to do again, but that threat looms in the background.
Sandgaard negotiated a 15-year lease, but uncertainty around the stadium and training ground is rightly a cause for concern for fans. Any new owner will unlikely be taken seriously by supporters unless they buy them back.
Duchatelet wants £53m for The Valley and the Sparrows Lane training ground – that includes £46m for him plus £7m owed to ex-directors.
Back in 2020, Sandgaard appeared completely different to his predecessors. The self-proclaimed rockstar businessman used his cringey-charisma to try and sell a dream to Charlton fans.
He was front and centre of everything, from those wild promises to releasing a ‘fight song’ called Addicks to Victory.
The bubble did not take long to burst. Sandgaard has been absent from games, has little communication with supporters, and his once active Twitter account has not posted in almost a year.
Over the last season, the uncertainty surrounding the club’s ownership increased and it became clear Sandgaard wanted to sell.
Former Sunderland executive Methven led a consortium, which included American billionaire Friedman, who looked in pole position to take ownership.
People may remember Methven from the Sunderland ‘Til I Die Netflix documentary as the man who tried to change their Stadium of Light walk on music and had many moments that led fans to compared him to David Brent.
A new company, SE7 Partners, was registered and Methven led the appointments at the Addicks of COO Jim Rodwell, finance director Ed Warrick, and technical director Andy Scott in December 2020.
That group was also instrumental in hiring manager Dean Holden following Ben Garner’s sacking.
Garner’s insight into life at the club was telling. Resources that had apparently been promised were not available.
“He liked the publicity and the limelight, but then it became more apparent that it was costing him a lot of money and he wasn’t getting too much [back],” Garner told The Times.
A price of £8.5million was agreed with the Methven group for 90 per cent of the club, but the deal collapsed in February with Sandgaard claiming they ‘didn’t comply’ with ‘very specific terms’.
Deposits had been paid into accounts, but the Methven group received a letter saying the deal was off.
Rodwell, Warrick and Scott subsequently left the club.
Since then, American businessman Marc Spiegel arrived as the next interested party, despite Methven threatening legal action over claims negotiations with others were a breach of their exclusivity period.
Former Portsmouth director Peter Storrie joined as the new CEO as a result and still remains in post.
The Spiegel deal has been rumbling on in the background for the last couple of months, and reports hint that he was still looking for investment as recently as April.
A business proposal was leaked on social media and was quickly dismantled by fans for wild claims such as London housing 600,000 Charlton supporters alone.
Things appeared to be moving at the end of April with promises that the takeover ‘would be completed this week’, only for that deadline to pass.
On May 4, CEO Storrie told Charlton fans: “Things are ongoing. The original party, Marc Spiegel’s, is still ongoing. That may well conclude, but there are other parties that have shown an interest that Thomas is talking to.”
talkSPORT was told earlier this month that the Spiegel deal had collapsed despite no official confirmation from the club.
The Methven-led group continued to be in talks to buy Charlton and negotiations ramped up in the last two weeks.
Sandgaard, however, was also reported to be in negotiations with other interested parties, with two separate groups touted.
Robert Platek, a partner at investment firm MSD Capital, has been linked with a takeover. He already owns Serie A side Spezia, Portuguese club Casa Pia and Danish second-tier team Sonderjyske.
Armenian businessman Roman Gevorkyan has also been touted as a contender to add to his Noah Football Group. He already owns Armenian Premier League side FC Noah and has stakes in Hungarian team Debreceni VSC, French Ligue 2 side Paris FC and Serie C outfit Siena.
But Methven’s group are now in pole position to close out a deal. Two increased offers were made by the group, the first of £10.5m and the second an improvement on that, that were turned down by Sandgaard.
The price eventually agreed this week is £12m, just shy of the increased £12.5m valuation Sandgaard had put on the club.
So Sandgaard looks finally set to be on his way out of the club, however this is a situation that has been all too familiar to Charlton fans. Brighter days still seem some way off.
