Dear Mr Hughes,
Firstly, please allow me to take this opportunity to say that we hope you are well and enjoying your new role at Oldham Athletic, since you left your position as fan's rep on the board and vice chair of OASF earlier in the year.
I am writing on behalf of the OASF board in response to your email dated 07.12.21. In which you declared the club’s intention to put you forward as the “main point of contact” with OASF.
The board have discussed the club’s proposal and as a courtesy are notifying you of our intention to make this response open to the public on our website from 9am on Friday 10th December 2022. Our response is as follows:
Frankly, we are disappointed but not surprised by this proposal. With all due respect to yourself and your own honourable intentions Paul, we were promised direct, monthly contact with existing directors of the football club, which you are not. I have, both individually and as part of the board, spoken directly to Abdallah, Richard Bowden and Adam Morallee, all of whom, at the time, stressed that they understood the need to communicate directly with us and that they understood our frustrations. Their response since? To cancel the board to board meeting we had arranged for October , deny us access to accounts and not reach out to us again to re-arrange (with the exception of a meeting with Steven Brown, which was also cancelled, at the last minute).
You state in your email that “there appears to have been a significant change in the Foundation's approach” and you are absolutely correct, there has been and there will continue to be. We have grown our membership to over 1,000 off the back of this approach and take our responsibility seriously. We are not prepared to be disregarded, lied to and ignored. We are not prepared to talk to, and again, with all due respect, a newly instated club volunteer and a newly appointed general manager when we have been promised a direct line with the board of directors. This OASF board will not tolerate the contempt and disregard the current OAFC board is treating us with at such a critical time in the football club’s history. Our members and the fans we represent, expect more.
If you are in any doubt as to why we feel we are justified in respectfully turning down your offer to meet with yourself and Steve on January 8th, please read the OASF statement in the article below.
We are willing to keep the date of 8th January open and have a proposal of our own. We invite the existing members of the board to join us and a selected number of supporters for a fan's forum at the OEC prior to the Sutton United game.
We present the club with the opportunity to start 2022 with a statement of intent and goodwill by killing two birds with one stone; a meeting in person with the board of OASF and with the fans, something it failed to do during the whole of 2021.
We look forward to you passing this on to the board and reading your/their reply.
Best regards,
Matt Dean / OASF Board of Directors