CHARLTON have declined to enter the Asia Cup and will not travel to China prior to next season.

The Addicks made the trip last summer and had been invited back to Shanghai to take part in a four-team tournament at the end of July, but club officials, including Addicks boss Alan Curbishley, decided the trip was too close to the start of the 2005/06 campaign.

Curbishley said: "Once the dates were changed, it made our minds up that it was too close to the start of the season and we wanted to use that time to get some more football in this country. We felt that was missing last year."