Wednesday 1 April 2020 20:05, UK
Charlton owner Tahnoon Nimer has told Sky Sports News he will immediately inject money into the club to safeguard its future during the coronavirus crisis.
Despite the huge uncertainty facing the entire football pyramid, Nimer insists he will put the finances in that he promised when he completed the takeover in January, and has written to all club staff to reassure them about the future.
"I will never let them down," he said. "We are ready to inject the money [since] day one [that] we arrived.
"If there is anything short-cut in the club we are going to support it. We will start on the pitch, we are going to start to maintain the club immediately, change the lighting, refurbish it. This is one of our plans we are going to do."
Nimer also reiterated his confidence that he has definitively won the boardroom battle for control of the club, having last week appointed two new directors to replace chairman Matt Southall and businessman Jonathan Heller.
"Matt Southall is no longer the chairman of Charlton Athletic, he has been removed and my authority as a major shareholder allows me to do this," he said.
"He lied to the people actually when he said the club is safe until December. Now we are going to inject the money because we found that there is no money in the club."
Nimer also accused Mr Southall of being responsible for taking £1.8m out of the club during his time as chairman, including for expenses to fund his lifestyle. Southall has denied the allegations to Sky Sports News, and says he will respond to the claims in due course.
Southall also maintains that the attempt to remove him from the board was unlawful and he in turn accuses Nimer of failing to deliver on his promise to put any money into the club to date.
Charlton remain under an EFL registration embargo as Nimer has far failed to provide evidence to prove the source and sufficiency of his funding. However, Nimer says he has now supplied everything the EFL needs and will not wait for them to give him the green light before injecting the money needed to safeguard the future of the club.
"The plan is quite simple; to get Charlton Athletic a financial footing right now to get them back to the Premier League," he said. "We are discussing already with the EFL [and] submit five or six documents from different banks, which prove where the funds come and the different amounts inside.
"The EFL will take time but I'm not going to wait for the EFL, I'm going to support the club as much as a I can now."
Nimer also wanted to make clear that those finances are not connected to the Abu Dhabi Royal Family, a question the EFL had to explore over fears of dual ownership due to Sheikh Mansour's ownership of Manchester City.
"To make it clear to the fans, because they have misunderstood, they think that Panorama (his investment group) is under the Abu Dhabi Business Development, which is misinformation," he said.
"It's under Emirates Focus Group - nothing to do with ADBD - and I want to mention to them also that the club is safe and I need the support of the fans, and we are looking forward to move on."
