Charlton Athletic blame Lee Bowyer for contract talks breakdown and reveal how much he is demanding
Charlton Athletic have blamed Lee Bowyer’s wage demands as the reason behind the delay in him signing a contract extension as the club’s manager, barely four weeks after he helped secure promotion to the Championship.
In a lengthy statement posted on the club’s website, the board claimed that they are unwilling to offer Bowyer a contract of more than one year’s length due to their attempts to sell the club.
But the club also took the decision to reveal what Bowyer is asking for in negotiations, stating that it is triple what he was paid last season since being made permanent manager in September and more than what they have paid any manager since being relegated from the Premier League in 2007.
They also took aim at the 42-year-old decision to use an agent to represent him in negotiations, which the club believe opens him up to being swayed into favouring players in the transfer market who are represented by the same person.
The statement read: “Charlton Athletic have been unable to reach an agreement with manager Lee Bowyer regarding the extension of his contract.
“The fact the club is for sale has not helped with finding an agreement. 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. It is six times what he earned when he started as assistant manager in 2017 and 50 per cent 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 statement went on to hit out at other Championship clubs who are spending larger sums of money on their managers as well as players, which in turn racks up large losses at the end of each season. Charlton’s accounts, which were posted at the end of March this year, revealed a £10.1m loss, which was up from the £1.4m profit they posted in 2018.
“The owner understands Lee’s point of view, because many Championship clubs pay huge amounts (some pay millions per year) to their manager,” the statement continued. “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.
“This is why we could not come to an agreement. Another element may have influenced as well. Unlike previous contract discussions, Lee wanted an agent to handle it. 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 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 disagreement leaves Charlton facing the prospect of losing the manager who took them to promotion under a month ago in 13 days’ time when his contract expires, though they did leave the door open to him remaining at the helm if he is willing to U-turn on his demands.
But they also revealed that plans are already in place to deal with his impending exit by not appointing a permanent replacement, with the preference instead to hire a caretaker manager to work with existing members at the club to prepare the team and lead them in matches until the club is eventually sold – which they add is the priority for the club over negotiations with Bowyer.
The statement added: “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.”
Bowyer said earlier in the week that he was “hopeful” of reaching a breakthrough in negotiations and that he wanted his future to remain at The Valley, but that appears to now be off the table.
Speaking to the South London Press, Bowyer says: “All I wanted was to be treated fairly,” he said. “And now we have started negotiating.
“Hopefully we can come to an agreement.”
