OLDHAM Athletic owner Abdallah Lemsagam said the three fans who have been banned from the club’s senior and youth team games “deserve” to be kept out of Boundary Park.

Bradley Knowles, Nathan Price and Dom Weiss were notified in writing by Latics’ general manager Steven Brown that they would each receive a three-year ban.

Brown wrote that he had been instructed by the board to ‘review actions of individuals that we feel are deliberately geared to harm and cause distress to the club.’ However the move led to the resignation non-executive board member Richard Bowden, who said he had not been informed of the letters and would have been against them.

And in the interview with national radio station talkSPORT, Lemsagam himself even appeared to not be entirely fully informed.

When asked why the three fans had been banned, he said: “We have people at the club, they tell me.

“Not me, I’m in Dubai, different people every day are at the club. Why (does) everybody put me in the lies, why always Abdallah? It’s not Abdallah’s club, it’s Oldham Athletic. It’s 126 years old. It’s not the owner’s fault what happened there.

“They have people [who] don’t behave or do the right things, this is what happens in every club. Any club in the Premier League or Championship, the people who go in the field, shout at the club, they don’t have any interest in the club. The people getting banned, I think they deserve it, to be honest with you.

“If they are not behaving like every person just watching the game, they deserve to be banned.

“Of course, they have the right to protest, nobody stops them. But you cannot go on the pitch. If you don’t want to come, you’re right, if you want to protest nobody can stop you, but why can’t I also ban you? If you come to the club and protest and do everything against the club and you think the club cannot ban you?”

However, neither Knowles, Price or Weiss have been involved in pitch invasions or the tennis ball protest which disrupted the Carabao Cup game with Accrington Stanley.

They have merely been challenged for having an opinion on the way the football club is run.

Abdallah added: “I deal with everything going on at the club.

“Some people go on there against the club, they can protest and nobody stops them. They don’t like me, it’s their right, nobody stops them liking me or not liking me. I’m trying to steer the club in the right direction. We’re working hard. It’s not easy. If you’re working hard and somebody puts you down more than what you think about the players every day…”

But Lemsagam said the situation would be resolved with an apology.

“I’m happy to bring them back, more than happy, especially now in Christmas, I am a gentleman. But please behave like a proper fan,” he said.

“They can come back if they behave. They must apologise to everyone in the club. Not to me, I don’t care. But to every person who works in the club, to apologise to them and tell them we are together.”