Right call to stand firm with plan

Pressing Matters . . .
SIMON Corney can hardly be blamed for firmly pushing Dr Marwan Koukash’s interest in Athletic into the past tense.

It is more than half a year since the pair had their first and final meeting to discuss the grand plan.

Far more words have since been spoken on television and radio and written online and in print than were ever exchanged back then.

No bid was even lodged for the football club. They were too far apart in valuations for that.

Koukash continued to discuss his idea of buying up both Athletic and Oldham RL and then constructing a brand new multi-use stadium for both, within the town’s borders.

He was serious in his intentions, he stressed, urging doubters to examine his achievements in the sporting spheres of horse racing and rugby league.

Corney, meanwhile, continued to stress his own doubts.

And the chairman's intervention earlier this week made the remaining big questions over Koukash’s big idea — where a new stadium would be built and who would pay for it — irrelevant.

Corney and Athletic were simply not prepared to wait on the hope of a still-vague grand plan coming to fruition years down the line.

There are no hard feelings remaining between the pair, only a shared acceptance that their ideas to progress the football club differed.

Athletic’s chairman’s past experiences can only have increased his doubts over the likelihood of even a man as go-getting as Koukash achieving his intentions.

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