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Lee Charnley is a guy who has risen without trace.

Risen to become – on the face of it – one of the most important figures at one of English football’s most important clubs .

Newcastle United.

Only Newcastle United is no longer one of English football’s most important clubs.

It is a club that doesn’t want a manager. It is a club that will sell its best players. It is a club that cares for nothing but commerce.

Few clubs have such importance to its community. That community has my heartfelt sympathy.

You deserve a hell of a lot better.

Charley is part of that ­community and has progressed to become managing director at St James’ Park .

(Image: Laurence Griffiths)

He is in charge of appointing a head coach after Alan Pardew – in a move that tells you all you need to know about this Newcastle United – left St James’ Park for Selhurst Park.

Left willingly, happily, probably would have walked there.

“The traditional English manager who would want full control is not what I’m looking for,” trumpeted Charnley in a 2,300-word Q&A, which ­represented his first public pronouncement in eight months.

“This isn’t something new, but … it’s a greater clarity for whoever gets the job, in terms of what they do, what their role is and what they can speak to the media about.”

Newcastle's Premier League season 7 Won 6 Drawn 9 Lost 26 Scored 25 Conceded 27 Points

For goodness sake, this is Newcastle United Football Club, not North Korea. (The “interview”, incidentally, appeared in a publication once banned for a YEAR for reporting protests against Mike Ashley’s ownership.)

Charnley’s long, windy, empty ­explanations of the organisation’s ­“structure”, “strategy”, “philosophy” and “culture” has to be one of the most depressing documents a football fan could read.

Specifically, it is the role of the new manager – sorry, head coach – that should leave Newcastle fans slack-jawed with gloom.

“It’s … someone that for example, if we were to get an offer for a player that is at a value that we want to take, isn’t nervous about getting a replacement.”

(Image: Michael Steele)

Let me translate. If the manager – sorry, head coach – doesn’t like us selling his best players for big dough, then tough.

… isn’t nervous about getting a replacement. How will that work? Elsewhere in these sorry ramblings, Charnley makes it clear the new manager – sorry, head coach – will have little say in recruitment. A value that we want to take. It’s as though he is talking about stocks and shares, not footballers who grow to be heroes to tens of ­thousands of supporters.

But, as a loyal lieutenant of Ashley, Charnley would know the importance of stocks and shares.

Last week, Ashley put 15.4million of his shares in Sports Direct up for sale at £117million.

That, by the way, is just a 2.6 per cent stake in the company. He has a remaining 55 per cent.

Do the maths.

Yet, still Ashley needs to use Newcastle United to make a few more quid.

What sort of character wants to work for Ashley and Charnley?

In pictures - last month's Newcastle-Sunderland clash:

One who doesn’t mind being instructed about what he can and cannot say.

One who will smile sweetly when his talent is flogged off. One who will do as he is told.

Never mind this trend for head coaches, the man in charge of the team should be the focal point for the passion of the fans.

Just as Sir Bobby Robson and Kevin Keegan were at St James’ Park, just as Sir Alex Ferguson was at Old Trafford, just as Jose ­Mourinho is at Chelsea.

They should be leaders – not boardroom lickspittles. But to have a leader would be to have vision beyond the balance sheet.

Coming in at 19th, recent figures in a financial table showed Newcastle is now one of the richest clubs in the world.

Sadly, in its ambition and its values, it is one of the poorest.