PRESTATYN Town chairman Jamie Welsh has opened up about recent events at the club.

There has been a significant amount of unrest at the JD Cymru North champions since the end of the campaign, which began with the club failing to obtain their Tier 1 Domestic Licence from the Football Association of Wakes and ended with manager Neil Gibson resigning from his post on Friday.

A number of other individuals behind the scenes have also left the set-up in recent weeks, including long-standing staff member Martin Jones, CEO Leigh Williams and general manager Leon Field.

Welsh took over from previous owner Neal Colakoglu earlier this summer, who quickly took over at Holywell Town, and has been fighting fires ever since across all areas of the club. This has been made more difficult be a lack of revenue coming in due to the coronavirus pandemic, which is something every club across the country below the JD Cymru Premier is currently experiencing.

In response to Gibson’s resignation, Welsh claimed that the club had worked hard to keep the playing squad intact ahead of their expected title challenge next time around and the decision came as a “shock”.

He said: “I spent all summer trying to keep him (Gibson) and the players happy. I gave him total control of the squad and the budget, but what changed recently was that we couldn’t afford the wages he was on with no money coming in.

“The type of contract he had meant that he couldn’t be furloughed, but with no football taking place the wage could not really be justified. We offered to sit down and discuss a reduced deal that was affordable, but he was never forthcoming, and I was surprised he walked away to be honest.

“I am thrilled that JP, Bolly, Callum and Ryan have agreed to stay on. I would be lost without their input.”

Another mysterious element to this scenario was the cancellation of all playing squad contracts almost simultaneously on the FAW’s Comet registration system, which club officials did not authorise and are looking into what Welsh described as a “clerical error”.

“I am trying to get the message across to the players that it wasn’t our intention to cancel their contracts,” added Welsh.

“We don’t know what’s happened to be honest, but we worked hard trying to keep them all this summer and didn’t want to lose them. I was on the phone to (Michael) Parker when his contract cancellation was emailed to him, so it's something we are looking into.”

Welsh also laughed off claims that the club receiving financial support from Stephen Vaughan Jr., the controversial former owner at Bangor City FC following further social media speculation this week.

“He (Vaughan Jr.) has got absolutely nothing to do with the club,” added Welsh.

This is something that was echoed by Vaughan Jr. himself when asked by The Journal recently, and Welsh also moved to reassure supporters that they are doing all they can behind the scenes to ensure they can stay in the championship picture when competitive action is permitted to resume by the FAW and Welsh Government.

He said: “We weren’t planning on changing the direction, you only had to see how we kept most of the players around to see that. We wanted the local lads here but when push comes to shove most of them have decided to leave with Neil.

“There comes a time when you cannot keep chasing them. We need to get a winning team back on the pitch, whether that comes with local players or some from 20 miles away. But the fans should know we’ll do our best to get the pride back into the club.”