An Oldham Athletic fan is heading a group of potential investors looking to buy the club and transform the town's fortunes using the power of Bitcoin.
Chris Lees, 60, grew up in Oldham and attended his first Latics game at Boundary Park when he was four years old. After leaving the town and enjoying a business career spanning various sectors in Spain, USA and Africa, Lees has launched an attempt to buy his faltering hometown club from controversial owner Abdallah Lemsagam.
Since buying the club in 2018, Lemsagam has overseen a relegation and steady decline to the foot of League Two. Various off-field scandals, ten managerial changes and now the very real threat of relegation to non-league took fans of Oldham to breaking point. Over the course of this season, they launched a series of boycotts and disruptive protests to try and force Lemsagam to sell.
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In return, Lemsagam tried to ban three fans for 'promoting dislike' of the club, until a nationwide backlash forced him to reverse his decision. Soon after, he issued a statement accepting the club will be better off under new ownership as he signalled his intention to sell the Latics.
Since then, Lemsagam has re-hired club legend John Sheridan as head coach in an attempt to perform another miracle and save Oldham from what would be a catastrophic relegation. They were eight points adrift of safety when he took over, and are now just two points adrift with a game in hand after a run of three wins and four draws in eight games.
The decline this season prompted Lees to put together a group of investors interesting in purchasing the club, with their plans announced on Friday through the Oldham Times. Lees has given various interviews to promote his interest, with the most notable aspect of his detailed seven-year plan being the ambition to turn Oldham into the first 'Bitcoin Standard' club in the Football League, with a goal of deploying 10 per cent of the balance sheet into Bitcoin within three years.
Speaking to MEN Sport, Lees explained just what that means to any sceptical Latics fans.
"If you don’t know anything about it, you don’t need to know anything about it," he said. "It’s not going to change anything about your experience at the club.
"It’s going to change the experience of how the club operates and becomes a profitable, solid entity going forward. Don’t think about ‘I don’t understand about Bitcoin’. It doesn’t matter, it’s got nothing to do with how the club will run in terms of experience of supporters and the wider community interacting with the club. I have to talk about it because it’s key to the whole thing.
"Bitcoin is an asset, fully regulated as real estate or bonds or stocks and shares would be. There’s an economic model using bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, institutional lending and borrowing. We’re there on that level. Any funding that comes into Oldham Athletic would be in legal tender. It’ll be in sterling, but the source of the funds will come out of that industry and the groups I control within that industry.
"We want to put 10 per cent of our balance sheet into bitcoin. The advantage is if we put cash in the bank, it devalues and doesn’t earn any yield, we don’t get anything for putting it there. Cash on the balance sheet isn’t good for your business.
"A lot of businesses have Bitcoin on the balance sheet, even Tesla have done it. When Elon Musk does things like this, people need to listen. He’s the richest man in the world, sending people into space, what does he know? He has Bitcoin on his balance sheet.
"If you do that, you can lend that to institutions which is what banks do with your money. We won’t be doing that, we’ll use that money to get yield on it. That money will not evaporate into thin air, it won’t devalue in the medium term. Bitcoin is volatile, but over the medium to long term, it’s a deflationary risk.
"In the last ten years, Bitcoin has compounded on average 10-11 per cent a year. So if Oldham put £250,000 on its balance sheet in 2012, it would have £2.2billion now. It would be the richest club in the world. Or if they left £250,000 in the bank which would be worth, what, £255,000 today? Even if Bitcoin slows down, and only compounds at 100pc a year, it’s still the value of one Bitcoin by 2030 is £1m."
So while Lees says the Bitcoin model will not affect Latics fans directly, he says it will be crucial to his prospective bid as his group intends to run the club differently from any other.
He explained: "By utilising the space I’m in in terms of cryptocurrency, there’s an angle that we could do that’s a little different and hadn’t been done before.
"If you’re coming into a club with a few million quid and doing what’s already been done, then you’re always going to get what you’ve always got. You’ll paper over cracks, then they’ll appear again. That’s what happens in football. Coming in with a few million quid isn’t an answer. If that was the only option on the table, I’m not interested, I’d never do that.
"You're throwing money, I’d rather give it away to someone else. By developing this idea to define the bigger picture around the club, then it started to make sense. Maybe we can re-engineer the whole thing and start from scratch, building on sound business principles.
"A lot of professional, big Blue-Chips that I’ve dealt with. There are a lot of people who want to get into football and find the right clubs. But football is very pay-to-play, there’s a lot of companies looking to get in on the ground floor that can bring a lot to the party."
Lees' plan involved making the club profitable as soon as possible, trying to get the ownership of Boundary Park and the club under the same umbrella, and potentially redeveloping the ground in the coming years.
He also intends to use his knowledge of cryptocurrency to promote the club on an international scale, as well as using the town's location just eight miles from Manchester to their advantage.
"I remember as a kid going to Tommyfield market and it was buzzing up there," he recalled.
"I was there a couple of weeks ago before the Bradford game on a Saturday afternoon. I hadn’t been there for so long and it was desolate. I was in Reading and you look at their Madejski Stadium and everything started to happen around there and it attracted businesses and companies to Reading.
"Now, the number of industrial parks, flats, apartments, because of the proximity to London. That’s 30-odd miles, Oldham’s only eight miles from Manchester, where all that money will spill out. Manchester will get more expensive, more people will come there, so people want cheaper places to live. Why not spill out to Oldham?
"We want to attract new industries and sell it on the fact it’s close to Manchester. This is important, and why the club can be a focal point for everything. There has to be a focal point.
"Salford Quays is how it is because of United, the development at City is because of the club. Even Liverpool, people will come and that’s what we can do for Oldham. It takes a lot of time, could take 20 years, but someone has to get the ball rolling. You can’t leave it dying, people are leaving."
Lees says his representatives have been contacting Oldham since December, but are yet to receive a reply. When contacted by the Manchester Evening News, Oldham Athletic wouldn't comment on where the club stands regarding any potential sale but did note that Lees met General Manager Steve Brown at Oldham's League Two fixture with Carlisle on Sunday.
The Oldham Athletic Supporter's Foundation, which have a three per cent stake in the club, told the MEN: “The OASF Board are planning to meet Mr Lees with a view to discussing his plans in more detail and assess their viability for the future of Oldham Athletic.
"We have had discussions with three other interested parties all at different stages and we are keen to ensure that any buyer has the best interests of the club at heart. We understand that the club is in discussions with several parties as well, and we have requested an update on their current position, and we will update our members as and when we are able to do so.”
As Lees waits for a response from Oldham, he says he will continue to discuss his plans with fans and reassure them of his plans for the club and the use of Bitcoin that are central to those proposals.
"It’s a big vision, it matters to me because I come from there and don’t want to see this place die," he said. "I got to 60, maybe I looked back on life and thought there’s got to be a way to do something. Maybe I’m in a position to turn things around.
"Others will come, we’ve got some really interesting, massive companies that need an office here, we’ll give them a base here. It’s so exciting. There is massive potential to renew and re-energise the town. There has to be a reason, a focal point. Something happening, something exciting."
