Charlton Athletic were robbed blind by Rangers - Addicks must always hate it | OneFootball

Charlton had just been promoted to the Championship when they lost Joe Aribo to the Scottish giants, a move that they'll have come to regret.

Charlton Athletic were still celebrating promotion from League One when they lost midfielder Joe Aribo to Rangers, and it would be a loss that they would come to regret.

There was a celebratory atmosphere around The Valley at the end of the 2018-19 season. Charlton Athletic had just sealed a return to the Championship following an absence of three years after beating Sunderland 2-1 in the League One play-off final, a small ray of sunshine after years of decline following their relegation from the Premier League in 2007.

A return to the second tier meant that there was squad strengthening to do and, sure enough, 15 new players arrived at the club in that summer's transfer window. But there were also departures that summer, and amongst them was one of the key components to their promotion push, the future Nigerian international Joe Aribo, who'd scored a crucial goal in their play-off semi-final against Doncaster Rovers.

And Charlton couldn't even console themselves with a tidy transfer fee when the player turned down a new contract and left to go north of the border. The compensation amount agreed with Rangers turned out to be a very small consolation for the loss of a player who would go on to shine, not only in the Scottish Premiership, but also in the Premier League in England.

Aribo shone over three seasons at The Valley following a testing start to his career there

Born in London in 1996, Joe Aribo was spotted by Charlton in 2015 while playing for Staines Town in the Isthmian League and signed for the club in September of that year. Aribo had something of a baptism of fire to his life as a professional player. Charlton were relegated from the Championship at the end of his first season with the club after finishing 22nd in the table.

But Aribo's clear talent meant that he survived a cull of players, as the club sought to readjust to the financial realities of dropping into League One. He didn't make a single appearance for them during that relegation season, but his patience would come to reap serious rewards over the next three years.

The Addicks struggled in their first year back in League One, finishing a relatively lowly 13th in the table, but there was a considerable improvement the following season, when they finished in 6th place before losing in the play-off semi-finals over two legs to Shrewsbury Town.

Over these first two seasons, Aribo was slowly integrated into the first team at The Valley, making 19 League appearances for them in the 2016-17 season and 25 the following season. He signed a contract extension with them in December 2016, tying himself to the club for a further two and a half years.

But it was with the arrival of Lee Bowyer as caretaker manager in March 2018, following the departure of Karl Robinson, that his role really started to grow, all the more so when Bowyer's position was made permanent on the 6th September 2018.

Charlton caught light at the start of 2019, losing just two out of 21 games from New Year's Day on and finishing in third place in the table on 88 points, behind champions Luton Town and Barnsley. And in the first leg of the play-off semi-finals, Aribo scored their second goal in a 2-1 win away to Doncaster Rovers. Charlton eventually sneaked through to Wembley after losing the home second leg 3-2 but winning the resulting penalty shootout.

The play-off final against Sunderland was played in front of a crowd of just over 76,000 at Wembley, and Charlton had the worst possible start when a 5th-minute own goal from Naby Sarr gave their opponents an early advantage. But they battled back. Ben Purrington brought them level ten minutes from half-time, and in the fourth minute of stoppage-time at the end of the match, Patrick Bauer scored a dramatic winner to send the Addicks back to the Championship.

Aribo was a hit at Rangers, but he's now back playing in the Championship again

Joe Aribo's contract with Charlton expired that summer, but they were unable to persuade him to stay with the club. The lure of a move to the Glasgow giants Rangers proved too great, and he left the club to head to Ibrox. As he was still under 23 years old at the time, the Addicks were entitled to compensation for him leaving, but the amount that they received was a fairly paltry £300,000.

But Aribo's decision to make the move to Scotland was vindicated in several different respects. Just a couple of months after he left The Valley, he was called up to the Nigeria international squad. He's gone on to make 34 appearances for them since.

He also enjoyed success at club level. In 2021, he was part of the Rangers team which became the Scottish champions for the first time in a decade, and at the end of the following season he was part of their team which reached the Europa League final before losing on penalty kicks to Eintracht Frankfurt after scoring their goal in a 1-1 draw.

Joe Aribo left Ibrox in the summer of 2022, returning to England in the Premier League with Southampton. And while Rangers will have been disappointed to have lost such an accomplished player, they did at least have the consolation of knowing that they'd sold on a player for whom they'd paid £300,000 for £6 million, rising to £10 million with add-ons.

And Charlton's resurgence turned out to be brief. They were relegated back from the Championship after just one season back, and wouldn't return to the second tier until 2025. The club had been chaotically run for years under a succession of bad owners, and it was only with their 2023 sale to Global Football Partners that they found any real stability off the pitch again.

Having joined Leicester City on loan at the end of the January 2026 transfer window, Joe Aribo finds himself fighting to avoid relegation from the Championship as a result of that club's previous financial indiscretions. With Charlton Athletic looking a better bet to stay up at the end of this season than the Foxes at the moment, a return to the club at which he started his career doesn't seem implausible.

Still only 29 years of age, such a return would certainly be a romantic way to complete a playing career which started under such testing circumstances. Addicks fans would surely welcome him back with open arms.