CHAIRMAN Ken Anderson has followed up his banning of Bolton News reporter Marc Iles on Friday morning by making a statement about it on the club website on Friday evening.

Anderson instructed a club representative to email The Bolton News editors on Friday morning that their long-time club correspondent was no longer welcome to attend matches or press conferences at the University of Bolton Stadium due to what he regarded as negative coverage of the club's affairs culminating in a GIF on Twitter of the Muppets Christmas Carol.

On the club's website on Friday evening he said: "It is with a degree of reluctance that I have made the decision to suspend the Bolton News’ chief football correspondent Marc Iles’ media access privileges at the club with immediate effect.

"Over a prolonged period his coverage of the club both in the paper and on his Twitter account have been negative and an increasing number of his articles have been factually incorrect, which in my opinion causes unnecessary alarm to our supporters and certainly does not aid us in our search for new investment.

"An official from the club met up with senior representatives from the Bolton News yesterday to outline our position and you can only imagine my disappointment and frustration when Marc published a tweet this morning which we considered to be unprofessional. To paraphrase Marc’s ‘Enough Is Enough’ paraphrase I decided to suspend his club media privileges until we can find a solution that is beneficial to the long term future of the club.

"As I have reiterated to them, this stance does not apply to the Bolton News nor its other members of staff who are welcome to undertake their duties."