Moore vows to sell

Last updated : 17 July 2003 By The Chairman

Chris Moore has made a firm vow to sell Oldham Athletic by the end of Thursday for the token sum of £1 and insisted that a takeover would definitely go through to ensure the club's survival. The frontrunners are the Norwegian consortium although Moore still has to agree with the final deal. If the Norwegian deal falls through he will do a U-turn and pledged to give control of the club to the Latics management group.

Moore said, “One way or the other, it will happen by Thursday night. I will sell my shares for £1 to either the Norwegian businessman I am seeing in the morning, or to Sean Jarvis and Neil Joy who will hold them on behalf of their investors. Part of the rescue package of £1.5million was £500,000 from player sales and I have achieved that from Chris Armstrong, Fitz Hall and Clint Hill. I don't want to destroy the work Jarvis and Joy have done in the community. I may yet fall back on their buy-out plan but I will definitely write off my entire loan - and if it's what people want - have no more to do with the club.”

Staff wages, which were three weeks overdue, were also set to be paid on Thursday as the Football League has released the transfer money from the sales of Chris Armstrong and Fitz Hall. Mr Moore also promised that there
would be no more outgoing players as he felt Athletic now had enough money to survive. Since then, Lee Duxbury is set to join Bury although when Northampton enquired about Josh Low they were told that he was no longer available.

Mr. Moore’s statement is full of uncertainty and Latics fans can just hope that he does keep his vow and leave the real lovers of the club to pick up the mess. It’s time the Football League stepped in and showed some leadership with definite guidelines to avoid any other clubs getting in this position. Too many nights sleep has been lost by Oldham fans. Please, Mr. Moore, do the right thing.