Having achieved survival last season, despite having the smallest budget in the top flight, for the new Aviva Premiership season the coaching pair have been given extra funds to try and achieve their goal of reaching the top half of the table and qualifying for the Heineken Cup.

However, Leeds Carnegie's budget will still be considerably behind the majority of their rivals and the club are looking for extra investment from supporters and sponsors to create a sustainable future for Yorkshire rugby at the top of English and European rugby.

In order to retain their Premiership status last season, Leeds Carnegie were left with a budget deficit of £1.2m from their first season back in the Premiership which has risen to £1.5m this year.

As a result, Leeds have ploughed some of the extra £1m of central funding gained through survival - originally earmarked to service the debt - into extending the rugby budget from £4m to £4.5m to increase their chances of a top-six finish. The remainder of the central funding will go into running costs. The debt has been frozen for 12 months.
In order to pay that off next summer the club needs to break even over the coming financial year and to do that the club must reach their ambitious goals both on and off the pitch.

Chief Executive Gary Hetherington revealed that the club's board are taking a responsible view in the current economic climate for sustainable growth of the club. He commented, "As a board of directors we cannot allow the debt to threaten the existence of the club. Next year we are striving to break even.

"We have committed £4.5m to the rugby budget, which will enable our player wage bill to exceed £3m and that in itself has enabled us to sign 11 new players of quality to replace those who left, and to supplement those who did a good job last year. The first team squad now consists of 35 players plus 10 senior academy players.

"We have frozen the debt that was accrued by retaining our Premiership status last season. The debt at the year end on June 30 is close to £1.5m. Payments were due to start this year but we have frozen those for 12 months so that is not going to impact on our trading performance in 2010-11.

"Season tickets last year were 2,300, we want to get to 2,800. Already with six weeks to go we've taken as much in revenue as we did in the whole of last season.

"But we are confident that the team can now continue its upward movement in the Premiership at a time when most clubs are reducing their spending, albeit from a still higher base than ours. We are investing more and closing the gap and for the first time our rugby budget will be more than some of our competitors.

"The challenge for the club, indeed for all stakeholders in Leeds Carnegie, is to significantly grow the business, both from the terraces and the corporate areas. We do not have an ability to lose money this year, we have to operate at break-even or better, and any surplus would be invested into the rugby operation.

"To break even we need to increase our paying attendance at home games by 1,000 people and attract an additional 500 full-paying season-ticket members.

"We feel this is very achievable and the aim is to build on what was a very successful outcome against Worcester in our last home game, with a crowd of 10,000 and a very healthy corporate support. We would like to think everyone who attended that game will come to our opener against Bath.

"We also need to triple our commercial business, from sponsors, members and advertisers. In order to do that we have recruited a soon to be announced director to join the Leeds Carnegie board to work closely with our Commercial Director Rob Oates to grow to corporate side of the business, and we were delighted this week to announce our new main club sponsor in the Skelwith Group as part of that new process.

"In short we are very reliant on the Yorkshire business community and the rugby union fraternity throughout the region to show its support and demonstrate that the county not only needs but can sustain a Premiership club going forward.
"It's a crucial year ahead, we are taking a very bold and pro-active approach in what is a difficult economic climate. But there is a confidence that the club can deliver what it has promised in the past, a competitive team and a sustainable business," added Hetherington.