BURNLEY Football Club have issued a statement in response to an article in Saturday's Lancashire Telegraph.

The club feels that the tone of the article, which stated that the sale of a Burnley player was an option following the announcement of a £2.1million financial loss, was misrepresentative of the interview with chief executive Dave Edmundson.

The statement from Mr Edmundson read: "Burnley Football Club wishes to reassure supporters that, while player sales are inevitably 'an option' for the majority of Football League and Premiership clubs, current boardroom discussion surrounds the need to actively seek investment to strengthen the squad, not weaken it by selling a major asset.

"The £2.1m annual losses (2005/6) mentioned in the article are factual, but significant losses were inevitable with match-day revenues being affected by league position and the lack of a lucrative cup run.

"However, such losses were budgeted for.

"The Burnley board of directors are looking to redress the deficit and options such as future private investment and director loans are ways of doing this.

"So too are increased attendances, which we saw for the visit of Ipswich Town last weekend, when 700 more supporters 'walked-up' on the day to give us an above budget gate return."

Telegraph Sports Editor Paul Plunkett said: "We stand by the story completely.

"The interview with Mr Edmundson was accurate and represented his quotes in full.

"The club had just announced a loss of £2.1 million, and there isn't a newspaper in the country that wouldn't have questioned the chief executive on the possibility of selling a player.

"We put that question to Mr Edmundson, and he replied in the affirmative.

"All of Mr Edmundson's other points were prominently reported and the remark about a player sale being an option was entirely put into the context intended by Mr Edmundson."

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