RETRO Oldham Athletic merchandise adorned with the name of controversial media mogul Robert Maxwell has been removed from the club's online store after criticism over the weekend.
The merchandise, which included items like aprons, cushions and face masks, was spotted and shared on social media by football finance academic and author Kieran Maguire on Saturday.
The Latics are not responsible for their own online store, outsourcing it to Elite Sports Group, itself a partner of Oldham Athletic's current kit supplier Hummel.
But The Oldham Times understands the club contacted Elite Sports Group as soon as it was aware of the criticism, and the merchandise has now been removed.
On Saturday, Maguire, who is best known for a book and a podcast both entitled 'The Price of Football', tweeted: "Oldham are selling a bizarre range of retro merchandise promoting the Maxwell name, from the time child sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell’s father Robert Maxwell, who stole millions from his employees’ pension fund, sponsored the club."
Maxwell's short sponsorship of The Latics dates back to the late 1980s, at around the same time as his Mirror Group Newspapers opened Mirror Colour Print – now Reach Printing Services – to print the Daily Mirror and other titles at a site on Hollinwood Avenue. At the time, he was also the owner of Derby County and a former owner of Oxford United.
After he died aged 68 in the early 1990s, it emerged he had used around £460 million from Mirror Group Newspapers' pension fund to prop up his media empire.
To add to all the controversy surrounding the merchandise on Oldham Athletic's online store, Maxwell's daughter, Ghislaine, was convicted of child sex trafficking in December of last year.
During a three-week trial, a court in Manhattan heard how the 60-year-old enticed teenagers into sexual relations with the late American millionaire Jeffery Epstein between 1994 and 2004.
The Oldham Times has asked Elite Sports Group for a comment on the decision to remove the merchandise from the club's online store.
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