NEWPORT County AFC director Howard Greenhaf talks to Michael Pearlman.

Let’s start with finances Howard. A recent story in the BBC website, only partially discredited by the club, said that you are losing £30,000 a month?

“We do lose money some months. Some months are very good and we make a profit and others are bad and we have a loss and it’s about trying to strike the right balance, it generally depends on our fixtures.

“Like every other League Two club we receive two payments a year from the Premier League and we have to accept that currently, we have a League Two fanbase in terms of who is coming through the gates.

“It would be lovely to be getting 5,000 fans every match, but that isn’t happening.

“We are very clear on the position, we need to keep our wages within 55% of what we generate in income and in our case, we’ve been able to supplement that with sponsorship money. Next year our sponsorship deal will be six figures, which is far and away the most we’ve ever made.

“Whether the news (about Les Scadding scaling back investment) came out the right way or the wrong way, the bottom line is, we need to become a sustainable club not relying on any individual.

“Our initial plan for this season was a budget of £1 million and Les and Justin spoke at length about that with the outcome being that Les supplemented the budget because Justin convinced him that it was beneficial. That wasn’t my decision.

“And in future, Les isn’t prepared to do that and that’s his prerogative.

“Commercially, the club is growing massively and we’ve had the Bisley suite packed out for some recent games.

“We had debts of over £750,000 owed to former directors and that number has been reduced by over half with Les taking shares in the club as opposed to placing the same financial demands on us as some others did.

“We also, of course, receive an income from the Football League which we didn’t get in the Conference.

“All things considered, we are in a stronger position financially than we have been for some time, but have to be willing to cut our playing budget for next season to around a million. But of course, that’s the budget for remaining in League Two. Categorically, it would be bigger if we got promoted. You get £400,000 more from the league, for a start.

“I am not going to pretend we haven’t made mistakes, because the main one, this season, was budgeting on a set number of people through the gate, rather than a certain financial figure, per game. That’s definitely something we will change for next season.

“3,300 was around the figure we were budgeting for, but next year we will be making forecasts on money through the door, not bums on seats. We have overachieved this season and it still hasn’t changed the amount of people who want to come and watch us play and that’s a factor for us.”

You currently have a chairman who spends most of his time in Barbados and you are personally coming in for criticism. How do you respond to it all?

“It’s an interesting situation. For starters, I can tell you that myself or Les would happily walk away from the club if we felt there was someone who could take us on and improve us.

“Les owns a 55% stake in the club after paying former directors and I’ve also put money in, even though I don’t get paid a salary and essentially just offer my free time around my own business interests, as plenty of others do at the club.

“Les isn’t in the greatest of health, he has diabetes and in his situation, he chooses to spend more time abroad that here and good luck to him.

“We are talking to potential investors, we have been for quite a while and it is an ongoing situation because we will always want investment and a chance to grow the club.

“But we don’t own our own stadium and don’t have many assets and are only willing to talk to parties with a genuine passion for the club. We would love to see a Newport County fan with money come in and take over, but there aren’t too many of them about.

“And I can only reiterate that we never, ever said no to a consortium. We said we needed more evidence of where the money was coming from, that was always our position and still is. We’d talk again today or tomorrow if they wanted.

“But Les isn’t walking away or anything like that. But we all recognise the need to increase our numbers in the board room and we expect an executive appointment to be announced before the end of the season. And that will be someone in a position to invest in the club.”

What about ticket prices? I’d argue and have in my column that it still costs too much to watch County and prices will presumably go up rather than down next season?

“Yes and no. We will be increasing the prices by around 5% for some of the seated areas, but we are also aware that we have a hardcore of fans who are already struggling with prices as they are.

“We will be offering a season ticket next season that will work out cheaper than £11 a game for the North Terrace. And we will try and do more to attract fans as the season goes on with offers, as we have been able to do in the past.”

Do you accept criticism from the fans that the club has a communication problem?

“Yes we do. I am not a media man and we fully acknowledge that we can do much better at this. That is why we are in the process of appointing a new media manager.

“But we have made an effort to improve things, like with bringing together the various supporter arms. We will always try to keep them as much in the picture as we possibly can.”

IN PART TWO.... Howard discusses the future of manager Jimmy Dack, his comments on player contracts and what the plans are for the squad next season, the managerial appointment process and County’s longer-term plans for the future.