Nathan Jones and the owner group
Rich Cawley has poured water over the Nathan Jones to Cardiff City yarn. The comments on the X post tell you the depth of feeling towards the most in-the-know Charlton reporter. Hoping Rich gets back to work soon.
Whilst The Bluebirds will need to look elsewhere we can continue to look forward to what will be a busy summer.
It didn’t go unnoticed that Charlton owner Gabriel Brener and Jones hugged fondly after the game at Wembley (photo).
Gabriel Brener, Joshua Friedman, Warren Rosenfeld, Munir Javeri, Marc Boyan and Hiroyuki Ono plus family members were all at Wembley to witness the possibilities of this football club. Brener and Friedman were also at Box Park lapping it up after as well.
Greg Docherty and one or two of the other senior players also stopped to acknowledge the owners, which showed they’ve built a relationship beyond that of just money men in the background.
It is Jones’ way of course. He’d not settle for having the likes of Charlie Methven, Andy Scott and Jim Rodwell as his mouthpiece, Jones would have made it his job to build a personal relationship with those that pay his wages.
The families of Brener and Friedman own 51% of the club and I believe that it’s Friedman’s son Spencer that has the most involvement. Friedman is said to have a net worth of $5B, so money there if he wants to spend it.
Interestingly and spotted by a couple of eagle-eyed Addicks, two new LLC’s were added to the list of investors at Companies House immediately after the Wembley win. Both registered in Delaware, a popular state to house a company due to tax and legal advantages.
They are Futbol UK LLC and 3FS Football LLC, using US law firm Duane Morris as their registered office.
Both entities have been set up as Special Purpose Vehicles, the first by Brener and the second by Friedman.
Possibly just platforms to move money and investments around efficiently, but the timing is interesting and the SPV’s could well be used to fund The Championship budget.
For me it is all about ambition now from the owners. We of all fans also crave sustainability and responsibility, but I would also hope that Jones, the team and the final weeks of the season have fuelled excitement amongst the owner group.
Very interesting post and thanks for doing the research.
Excellent post as always
I think that this was an informative and interesting article. Well worth a read-
https://www.castrust.org/2023/07/meet-the-new-owners/
I find it interest that there’s been no interviews, that I’m aware of, with any of the owners, particularly after the Play Off win.
It would be great to hear something from them, even if it’s only tokenism.
When Mickey Apples left Gabriel Brener and Joshua Friedman came over and interviewed Nathan Jones in person going over the heads of the SMT who employed Appleton.
Subsequent to that interview NJ was employed as an old school manager with considerably more power over signings/departures than previous managers who were in effect First Team Coaches reporting to Andy Scott. So I can understand why NJ has a good relationship with them which seems to be reciprocated.
The SPV you mention could be something, but it seems that our owners are expanding their interests in the sporting sector – we now have an affiliate academy in Jamaica (Mount Pleasant) and Charlie Methven has relocated (or will) to run both that and their wider sports related stuff.
We also have a vacancy for a CEO at the club with Methven’s departure – it’ll be interesting to see who we get and I have a hunch that the owners were waiting on the the end of the season before making a decision, obviously a Championship club is a bigger draw for the right person than a L1 side.
My thinking around the time of the takeover was that Brener, Friedman and others were not going to buy a football club that they had barely heard of (if at all) in a country on the other side of the Atlantic and then run it badly starving it of investment while allowing it run up losses which they were liable for. Why would you do that? Billionaire businessmen tend to want to see successful market leading companies in their portfolios not badly run money pits.
Totally Agree plus you also find Billionaire business men mostly enjoy the Sports they are investing in and whilst expecting to win things within certain timescales, like Charlton getting promoted, also like to see some entertainment & excitement on the way. As you rarely see USA investors investing in tedious &/or boring sports, unless it’s they are very profitable.
So hopefully they will now start to back Jones & Co, to bring in some decent good talent to push us forward and also provide some better entertaining football, but suspect they will also want someone to very carefully go over every potential signing Jones wants to bring in beforehand. As rest assured, even though they are Billionaires and we got promoted, they wouldn’t have been at all happy in shelling out for our most expensive signing Ahadme, who was a complete flop and didn’t contribute anything towards the promotion!
Interesting comments, from a supporter far away. As a family who support Charlton FC over the years Covered end Upper, meaning we’re season ticket holders rather than followers. It appears we get more of an idea from an Addick, the other side of the planet about the internal goings on of our club rather than local internal publicity from the club it’s self.
I was wondering who that guy was that he was hugging (Gabriel Brener) and hoped it might be one of the owners. I hadn’t realised that the owners had a personal relationship with Nathan Jones. I thought they were just distant overseas investors with no real interest in the club beyond a financial return.
I was fine with that — presumably, the aim of any investor is to put money into the club and help it realise its full potential, not leave it languishing in League One and starved of cash. That said, it’s great to see them taking a personal interest and really getting into the spirit of things. The Wembley experience should also reinforce the club’s potential and highlight the size of its fan base.
Just read this, and bearing in mind p and s rules (SCMP), money to spend isn’t enough.