Youth team could lose coaches
Last updated : 12 February 2003 By The Chairman
Athletic have revealed that up to a third of the coaching staff will have to go. Manager Iain Dowie has the difficult task of giving his staff the bad news, one of whom has already been told. The others will know their fate by the end of this week. The youth set up seems the most probable to be hit with the cutbacks.
Alan Hardy (pictured) has tried to clarify the financial situation at Boundary Park and said, 
“Firstly I would like to apologise for any confusion and giving the supporters the impression that we hadn't made inroads into our losses. Losses at Oldham Athletic still run at £50,000 per week. The reason that supporters have not seen this figure diminish is due to the fact that we have had to pay almost a quarter of a million pounds in settlements to players that have left the Club. In the short term, this figure is added to our losses which effectively means the 50K losses remain. However the benefits of these settlements will provide a long term benefit for the club and therefore reduce the losses in future. If we were to take out the exceptional items including the ex-gratia payments and amortisation of players' contracts the losses would be reduced to £39,000 per week. We are also benefiting from income from the Rugby but in terms of revenue generated it only reduces the losses in this financial year by just over £500 per week.”
“I would also like to take this opportunity to state that our supporters have been nothing short of outstanding in the support they have given Latics in initiatives such as the Sponsor A Seat campaign, increased Strike It Lucky sales, Starline memberships and merchandise sales to mention just a few. Their dedication to the club has been heart warming and taking the exceptional items into consideration their contribution has clearly made inroads to the reduction of losses. It is also clear that we have a long way to go in getting the club financially stable and consequently ask our supporters to stick with us as together we can continue to build Latics as one of the best clubs in the UK.”