It's been hard to hide just how bad things have been at Charlton Athletic in recent times.
A steadfast Premier League outfit during the majority of the noughties, the loss of Alan Curbishley to West Ham in 2006 after fifteen years in The Valley hot seat proved catastrophic for the Addicks, who after three roles of the managerial dice succumbed to the drop at the end of the 06/07 season.
Riddled with debt, and plummeting to League One, the club's promotion back to the Championship as champions in 2012 under the stewardship of ex-legend Chris Powell should have been the start of something again.
But that debt remained and owner Michael Slater wanted gone.
Eighteen months later, Roland Duchatelet offered him a way out and thus began a series of, at times, almost unbelievable events that have seen the Belgian and the club supporters in full-blown conflict.
More-or-less straight away, things were looking ropy. Less than a month after Duchatelet acquired the club, talisman Yann Kermorgant was sold. He would later call Duchatelet's ideas for the club as "deluded".
Two months later it was the manager who was clearing out his things.
With Powell gone, in came Jose Riga, who did just about enough to keep them in the Championship. But more sales followed that summer, with hot academy prospect Diego Poyet sold to West Ham after refusing a contract that had something or other in it about moving on loan to another Duchatelet acquired side, Standard Liege.
Riga didn't last long, neither did Bob Peeters, and after Guy Luzon lost his job in October 2015, the Israeli claimed that recruitment at the club was driven solely from a Belgian based scout with a liking for futsal players.
Subsequently, fans came together to form the Coalition Against Roland Duchatelet (CARD).
Back in League One a year later, and everything from plastic pigs to stress balls thrown from the stands in fan protest, last summer probably came the most ridiculous of all stories to purportedly come out of the club, when it was claimed that bottled water was being rationed and that the club's Academy players had to line up to drink from a water fountain.
Duchatelet has often used the club website to release reprimanding statements, that have on more than one occasion criticised the fans. Today probably came one of the more bizarre to date.
In a statement released on site this afternoon, Duchatelet claims that not only did two fans travel to Belgium over the weekend to attack properties belonging to him, friends and even friends of friends were targeted.
Oh yeah and he also demanded that the EFL buy the club from him!
The full statement can be found here, but some of the highlights included:
After two years of ownership without problems Charlton got too many injuries relative to its limited squad size. Results were poor. Fans started to criticise and then protest, sometimes during the games, which didn’t help. Charlton got relegated to League One.
As a result of the damaging and sometimes criminal fans protests and the changed financial climate of the P&S rules, Charlton were officially put up for sale at the end of 2017.
Two fans found sufficient support in this ambivalent attitude of the EFL to come to Belgium last weekend. They tagged and damaged several properties of Duchatelet, the homes of two friends of Duchatelet and the house of the friend of a friend.
Whilst criminal damage is not a laughing matter, you have to wonder how the farce can continue for much longer - or what creative protest idea supporters will come up with next!
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