Charlton Athletic boss Lee Bowyer has revealed the truth about the transfer embargo that the club faced during the January transfer window, noting the difficulties that he and director of football Steve Gallen faced.Â
It was revealed in March that the South London club had been subject to a transfer embargo as the EFL's requests for proof and source of funding had not been satisfied by East Street Investments majority shareholder Tahnoon Nimer.
It was announced at the start of January that ESI had completed their takeover of Charlton but that deal is currently being investigated by the EFL over misconduct.
Over the last few months, a boardroom civil war has between Nimer and ex-chairman Matt Southall poured out onto social media.
Bowyer and his squad have been fighting a relegation battle while the off-pitch issues have raged on.
The transfer embargo meant the Charlton boss' options in the January window were severely limited and, speaking to Sky Sports, he revealed the truth behind the situation.
He said: "Once we went into the embargo, no one knew apart from a handful of people at the club.
"We had to keep it among ourselves and I could understand that our fans were getting frustrated because they were like 'why aren't we bringing any players in'.
"Myself and Steve Gallen, they were saying 'they even don't know how to spend the money, they've never had money', so we were getting the blame but we knew that we weren't allowed to bring anyone else in.
"It was like was 'hold on, we can't say what's really going on'. We knew we were under the embargo. We'd lost three players in January, the loan players got recalled, and we had to replace them and one stage they weren't even going to let us replace the players that we had lost.
"We were like 'hold on that money's from previous, that's Roland's money, surely we can use that' and even that got cut."
He added: "No one knew what was going on really and we were half getting the blame because results weren't really going our way but we couldn't say 'look this is the truth, this is what's really going on'.
"That was tough. It was like 'hold on, how much do you want us to take, someone should step forward here and say look this is the situation' but no one did."
If and when the season resumes, the Addicks will have nine games to secure their Championship survival.
Charlton are 22nd as things stand just one place and two points away from safety.
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The VerdictÂ
It's great to finally get some truth behind what was going on at Charlton and to hear Bowyer's explanation of what must have been a really testing period.
The Addicks boss deserves an awful lot of credit for the job he has done at the club this term, having to deal with an injury crisis, transfer embargo, and other off-pitch issues.
You've got to feel for Charlton fans as well, who have been through a rough time with their ownership over the past few years.