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Roland Duchâtelet
Eccentric Belgian owner of Charlton since 2014, his reign was controversial from the start, with his initial “network’ of European clubs which saw a number of players of varying quality sent to Charlton. The club racked up losses and fell into League One, amid ever more strident and high profile fan protests. Always obsessed with separation of the football side of the business from the real estate, he finally put the club up for sale at £1 plus £50m for the Valley and training ground, a figure widely derided as unrealistic. Yet he felt able to give ESI1 five years to find the £50m, and sold the club for £1. He remains the owner of The Valley for now.
Richard Murray
The former majority owner of Charlton in the “golden years”, he remained as non-executive director under Duchatelet. He appears to have played a role in screening potential buyers. As such, he presumably recommended ESI1 as credible bidders.
Lee Amis
A Charlton supporter and local to the area, Amis, a property businessman, was mistrusted by some fans for his involvement in a failed bid for the club in 2010, and his long standing advocacy of a move to a new stadium at Greenwich Peninsula. He says that he introduced ESI1, and specifically Matt Southall to Richard Murray. He says that on completion he was to play a role in the club management and to receive a fee of £60k payable in monthly instalments. He also initially drove one of the Range Rovers procured by the club on Southall’s instructions. By February he was briefing some fans on his doubts about ESI, handed in his Range Rover and later assisted a fan group in tracking the subsequent usage of this car.
Tahnoon Nimer
Presented to fans as the “Middle Eastern money man” of ESI1, his exact background, and source of funds remained shrouded in mystery, compounded by his bizarre social media outputs on Instagram. In February he turned on Southall as evidence became public of the latter’s gross personal expenses, but it became clear that he had not actually put any money into the club and indeed was seeking to take money out via consultancy fees lodged by his long-time associate, Jacco van Seventer.
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Matt Southall
He initially appeared in front of Charlton fans as the most visible member of ESI. Thanks in part to the artfully created initial statement from ESI, he was warmly welcomed by fans, even as details emerged of his past which looked less than encouraging. They included involvement in failed bids for Bolton and Aston Villa, and unsuccessful business launches, including as an agent. The first real red flag came when he prevaricated over whether and how The Valley and training ground were included in ESI’s deal with Duchatelet; and another at the end of the transfer window, when his high profile antics produced nothing more than a few underwhelming loans – because, unbeknown to fans, Charlton were already under a transfer embargo. As rumours gathered pace, early in March Nimer suddenly took to social media to attack Southall’s behaviour and throw into doubt his own “investment” in the club. Lavish spending on a fleet of Range Rovers and a luxury riverside apartment were revealed. Chris Farnell suddenly appeared as Nimer’s lawyer, whereupon digging by fans quickly uncovered Farnell’s previous relationships with Southall. On March 12, Southall along with Jonathan Heller and Finance Director Sean McHugh were served with a suspension order, in a dramatic evening stand-off in the Valley boardroom. Three long-serving Charlton employees charged by Nimer with serving the suspension order (with Farnell skulking in the car park) were verbally ‘sacked’ by Southall. Police were called, by McHugh, but the police eventually escorted Southall and the other two off the premises, ending his three month reign as Chairman and CEO. However much remains to be clarified about Southall’s relationships with various other players on our map, particularly in the period when the ESI plan was first hatched.
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Jonathan Heller
On the ESI1 Charlton board with Southall and Nimer; his role was hard to pin down. He had been appointed CEO of Nimer’s ADBD company just before the purchase of Charlton, but when ESI began to unravel, Heller resigned from ADBD, telling a Romanian newspaper that the description of ADBD as an investment fund was misleading as “a fund has money”. He appeared to depart from Charlton distancing himself from both Southall and Nimer, but he is thought to have received substantial “consultancy fees” from Club funds for no discernible output.
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Jon Hirst
Like van Seventer, Hirst was listed on the ADBD website as an executive director, and it is understood that he and JVS introduced Southall and Nimer. Hirst is also notable as a former partner of Zeus Capital which was involved in the ownership of Glasgow Rangers in 2012; he and others from that company were charged with but acquitted of tax fraud related to a film investment scheme which had attracted funds from footballers, among others.
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Jacco Van Seventer
A businessman whose thin social media footprint suggests business interests in education software, he appeared to be based in Cheshire, but well known in some Dubai business circles. In the ADBD website which presented the “fund” supposedly headed by Nimer, he was presented as having been an executive director since 2008. Chris Farnell has stated that he knew van Seventer and Hirst several years before they talked to him about buying “a club”.
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Laurence Bassini
Bassini’s name was familiar to fans mainly thanks to his controversial ownership of Watford. He was briefly reported by the media to be interested in a bid for Charlton in May 2020. However documents subsequently emerged which showed that Bassini was claiming to be owed £1.25m by Charlton as a “finder’s fee” for his supposed involvement in assisting ESI’s purchase. This claim appears to have been dismissed by the club. Lee Amis has asserted that he (Amis) was the person who introduced ESI to Richard Murray, so he says Bassini’s supposed role is a bogus claim. Certainly such an amount for a finder’s fee would be highly excessive, and Bassini’s lawyers produced no contract to support the claim.
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Claudiu Florica
A Romanian businessman with an interest in football, he met Nimer in Bucharest, and in February 2020 they started talking in public about Nimer bidding for Dinamo, one of Romania’s top clubs. Subsequently Nimer invited him and Marion Mihail to join the CAFC board to “clear up the mess” after Southall’s departure. Florica is highly controversial in Romania, a key player in the “Microsoft” financial crime trials. On 24th March 2020, a Romanian court ordered him to “return” €10m to the Romanian State. A month later, he passed the EFL’s Owner and Director Test.
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Marian Mihail
An associate of Florica, much younger, a junior lawyer but with a clear interest in football, and unlike Florica with no controversies on his c.v. He was active in communication with fans during his time as a director, for which he received credit. He is criticised for making mistakes, but appears to have left the scene in credit due to his positive role in assisting the sale of the club to Thomas Sandgaard.
Chris Farnell
A self styled “sports lawyer”, his activities in football have been dogged by controversy (see file). He has been associated with van Seventer, Hirst and Southall for several years, they are all from the Manchester area, as is Paul Elliott, whom Farnell introduced as the front man of ESI2. He fell out with Southall before ESI1 launched its bid for Charlton, yet we have evidence that he wanted to be involved then. In the end he appeared in March 2020, allegedly at the behest of Nimer, and had Southall and Heller removed, installing the Romanians in their place, and presumably arranging the sale of ESI from Panorama Magic (Nimer) to Elliott. We believe Farnell has played a central role in the entire affair, a view clearly shared by Thomas Sandgaard.
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Paul Elliott
His arrival as the new “owner” of Charlton in June 2020 was met with widespread incredulity, as he had never been involved in football before and did not appear to have any visibly successful business which would help him fund a large football club. The EFL appeared to agree, since he went on to be (with Farnell) members of a very small and select group who have failed its Owners and Directors Test. Farnell sold him a dormant company, Lex Dominus, to be a vehicle for owning Charlton, or so he thought. However in late summer, as Thomas Sandgaard appeared, an epic court battle started from which it became clear that Lex Dominus had bought ESI – but ESI had already sold Charlton to Sandgaard. Elliott asserted that he had put money into the club during the summer to save it from administration, and demanded Sandgaard ‘give up’ the club. But just 4 weeks after this loud proclamation, he sold his interest to yet another obscure individual, Craig Freeman.
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Mohamed El Kashasy
He emerged in June 2020 as a ‘member of the consortium” fronted by Elliott and attended one match at the Valley. On-line scrutiny by Charlton researchers soon discovered that he and Farnell had established a UK company called Staunch Partners in November 2019. His apparently stellar early career in corporate marketing (according to his LinkedIn profile) did not stand up after normal reference-checking, and his only sign of entrepreneurship, Think Foods, appeared to be a chain of 5 coffee shops in the UAE. In October 2020, Staunch Partners was said to be the vehicle for acquisition of Burnley, even though Farnell was still claiming ownership of Charlton for a “consortium” which presumably still included Kashashy.
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Craig Freeman
A “dental accountant” (no, we don’t know either!) based in South Wales, he appears to have even less business substance than Elliott. He had made no attempt to visit or get involved with Charlton (which by this time was already benefitting from the Sandgaard ownership), and made no statement regarding his supposed purchase. It would be incorrect to say he disappeared, since he did not appear in any substantial form in the first place. It would however be unwise to under-estimate his role.
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Christopher Gascoine
Nottingham-based businessman Gascoine has a personal and family background in Real Estate and Property Investment. The names of some of his UK firms (Emirates Focus Group, Emirates Focus UK Ltd and Abu Dhabi Building Development (Bilthorpe) Ltd.) have been used by Nimer in the UAE. European Director at ADBD since 2008, he is well known to Hirst, van Seventer and Nimer. Gascoine and Hirst first approached Chris Farnell with an idea to buy a PL club such as Liverpool in c. 2017, naming Nimer as one of several potential Arab investors. When Farnell approached Nimer over an unpaid bill for the consultation, he was told that it was Gascoine’s responsibility. Farnell sent condolences to Gascoine when a close relative died in March 2019.
