Charlton Athletic Football Club (CAFC) has announced that it is to sell a number of its freehold assets, including the club's training ground, after shareholders backed the move in a bid to raise £1.5m.

The properties will be sold to club directors, who will then lease the facilities back to CAFC for a period of at least 25 years, with rental levels determined by market rates and the opportunity to buy sites back at any point. It is hoped that the move will enable the club to maintain its renowned youth structure intact despite an expected £10m reduction in revenue from next season, when a two-year period of parachute payments expires after the Addicks' relegation from the Premier League in 2007.

CAFC chair Richard Murray said: "Of course, this needs to be explained to the fans because if you just read it in black and white, it might look like asset-stripping is going on, but that certainly isn't the case. "The 25-year lease means the club has security of tenure and if, by any chance, the club came into some money which it wanted to invest back into the training ground, its got an option to buy the training ground back."