Lee Bowyer is set to leave
Charlton at the expiry of his contract this month, having failed to agree terms on an extension at the Valley just weeks after restoring the club to the Championship.
Confirmation of an imminent parting of the ways was made in an extraordinary statement posted on Charlton’s website on Monday, which detailed how the owner, Roland Duchâtelet, felt he could not offer more than a new 12-month deal given his on-going attempts to sell a loss-making club. The Belgian first placed Charlton on the market in 2017, with talks continuing with the Cardiff chairman, Mehmet Dalman, over a potential takeover.
The statement suggested Bowyer had been asking for a prohibitive increase on his current salary. Bowyer is understood to have spoken to Duchâtelet after the London club went public, with further talks expected on Tuesday. “The fact the club is for sale has not helped with finding an agreement,” it read.
“The current owner needs to take into account that a new owner may want to appoint his own manager. However, this concern did not stop the current owner proposing a contract extension of one year to Lee Bowyer, even though the club may be sold in a few weeks. Under those circumstances a multi-year extension would not be good business practice.
“In addition, since the club is still losing money, which is one of the reasons why the club has not been sold yet, the focus on reducing costs means that we are extremely limited on payroll increases. Lee has been offered a one-year extension to his contract at a level which is approximately three times what he had since his last increase when he became permanent manager in September [2018]. It is six times what he earned when he started as assistant manager in 2017 and 50% more than what any Charlton manager previously had (excluding the Premier League years). This reflects the strong desire we have to continue to have Lee as our manager. But Lee wanted much more.
“The owner understands Lee’s point of view, because many Championship clubs pay huge amounts (some pay millions of £ per year) to their manager. It is fair that Lee feels he should be paid like many other Championship managers. That the average Championship club makes a loss of around £15 million per year is not something players should care about. The owners are crazy.”
Bowyer, 42, initially took over on a caretaker basis following the departure of Karl Robinson in March 2018. He was retained last summer and steered Charlton back into the second tier via a play-off final victory over Sunderland.
Despite that progress, Duchatelet was apparently further dismayed by his manager’s insistence on using an agent to conduct negotiations over the new deal. That, the club claimed, might encourage a potential conflict of interest over transfers.
“Unlike previous contract discussions, Lee wanted an agent to handle it,” added the statement. “We reluctantly accepted. However, involving a player agent in a manager’s contract discussion is not healthy. If the agent helps make the manager more money, it may result in the manager to have [sic] a more positive attitude towards players proposed by the same agent, a conflict of interest. Obviously, Lee is above such things, but it is nevertheless not a healthy situation.
“The club hasn’t started to look for any other manager in the meantime and does not intend to appoint a permanent manager, since the club is going to be sold. A caretaker manager will be announced in due course and in the meantime the other staff members will continue to prepare the upcoming season for which a lot of good work has been performed already.
“If Lee does change his mind before his contract expires and chooses to continue his good work at Charlton, he is still welcome to stay. However our ability to sell the club is the most important thing right now.”