Like most football clubs in the United Kingdom, we, at Oldham Athletic, experience from time to time what can only be described as irresponsible reporting.
We do, however, accept that reporters need to write articles that, although often negative and detrimental to our club, have to be written. Going a step further, unfortunately we live in a society where some members of the press feel that only negative reports are worth writing.
We have learned to live with this although we often struggle to understand much of what is speculated about. We also typically refuse to get drawn into issuing denials of false and inaccurate stories, preferring to maintain a dignified silence in the face of sub-standard and often, plagiarised rumours from unofficial fan sites.
However, a recent article that appeared in the Daily Mail online was not only incredibly inaccurate, it managed to upset all mentioned parties as well as doing a huge amount of damage to our club. We would therefore like to point out that we, at Oldham Athletic, have never asked Paul Scholes to act as an ambassador of the club to attract investment and unreservedly apologise to him for being linked with this story. Paul was merely doing the club a huge favour by donating his time to help coach our youth team, as he does from time to time. We sincerely hope that the newspaper involved issues a formal retraction and apology.
We would also like to point out that the two Chinese visitors are not Manchester United fans, as was also mentioned in the article, and were merely getting a guided tour of the facilities used by the players. They remain disappointed that they were falsely linked with the above article and have now returned to China.
If, and when, there ever comes a time that the club has either been sold or attracted investment, we will let the fans know in a timely and professional manner. In the meantime, we urge all supporters that read any articles not released in conjunction with the club, to read with a sense of caution.