CAST wrote to the EFL in early August last year with specific questions about the EFL Owners and Directors Test (ODT) and how it impacted on the sale of Charlton Athletic. We received a prompt reply expressing the intention to invite us to a meeting after the holiday period.

On August 24th the EFL published a statement on their website announcing their intention to meet with the club and CAST to "gain a full understanding of the situation which surrounds the club"

Although this wasn't the primary purpose of our original approach we were pleased to be offered this opportunity to express our view on the management of the club under Roland Duchatelet, and a meeting was set for October 27th.

In mid-September the club website announced that the club had written to the EFL requesting that they "examine the communications by the club, CARD, CAST and on various social media platforms" and "to make recommendations on how the club and the other groups can improve this". Furthermore, the club requested that the issues of employee bonuses and cost efficiencies be included in the review. We understand that Duchatelet met Shaun Harvey (CEO of EFL) in early October.

Our meeting on October 27th was very useful in terms of providing clarity about the role of the EFL in the takeover process and the current state of affairs with regard to the sale of the club. We raised the issue of new EFL regulations which appeared to enable the EFL to sanction individuals who were seen to be damaging the reputation of the EFL. Shaun Harvey stressed that the powers were limited and that, provided no regulations were breached, the EFL was not in a position to take issue with how clubs are managed on a day to day basis. He informed us that the EFL would be continuing their review of the situation by speaking to club staff and to representatives from CARD

The meeting with staff representatives went ahead in November but the meeting with CARD did not take place until January. At this meeting the EFL reiterated that the findings of the review would be shared with all participants in the review. They stressed that they understood the need to expedite the process but said they might also seek to meet with the local press for their perspective before finalising the review.

At the end of February, when news of Harvey's impending departure from the post of EFL CEO became public, we wrote again enquiring about progress and expressing our hope that the review would not be hindered by his forthcoming departure.

On March 6th, shortly after Duchatelet issue his demand that the EFL purchase the club, the EFL stated on their website that "the ongoing review continues and is expected to reach a conclusion before the end of the season"

Two months later, at the end of the normal season (May 4th), we wrote to the EFL to remind them of this expectation. We received no reply. We therefore waited until after the play-off final to write again to enquire what was holding up the process. The reply we received did not inspire any confidence that a report was likely to be forthcoming in the near future.

We very much welcomed the announcement of the review back in August, but it was not set up at our instigation. It was the EFL who made the decision to conduct the review and the EFL who said they expected to report before the end of the season. Nine months after the review was first instigated we can only conclude that the continuing silence indicates that the EFL have no desire to complete their enquiry nor to make any findings public. This is extremely disappointing and it is hard to avoid the suspicion that the "review" was set up primarily to deter public demonstrations at the EFL offices.

The process would appear to have been a waste of everyone's time.