Blues chairman and CEO Mark Ashton believes the EFL and Premier League Financial Fair Play (FFP) rules need to be tightened to avoid clubs finding loopholes and avoiding censure.
Saturday’s opponents Leicester are among the clubs who had been charged with Financial Fair Play infringements but manages to avoid punishment having exploited discrepancies in the way the rules have been written.
Ashton, speaking alongside manager Kieran McKenna in an interview with TownTV conducted by Blues legend Matt Holland, was asked what the main challenges were during the summer transfer window in which the club signed 12 players.
"I think all areas,” he reflected. "Our success over the last two years has been unrivalled. Kieran has taken us through divisions at such a pace, which has been a fantastic achievement, but it brings us challenges.
"We did, as a group, what we said we were going to do, we were going to create a team in League One that would compete right at the top end of the Championship. But the time and the pace of that brings challenges once you’re promoted.
"We sat down with the ownership group not long after we’d been promoted in London and we talked to them about maybe needing to bring in 10, 12 or more players and they were great.
"They said, ‘What’s your Financial Fair Play headroom?’ and we told them and they basically said to go to the maximum, spend it. Spend it wisely but spend it.
"But even in spending our Financial Fair Play headroom maximum, we’re still at a disadvantage to the other clubs.
"And I think it’s really important that the fanbase understand this in real clarity. The other two teams who have been promoted with us have been in the Premier League recently, so they were on parachute payments.
"Whilst when we joined the club three years ago our revenues were around £13 million and will probably surpass £150 million this year, it’s not enough.
"That still puts us substantially behind every other Premier League club. It’s not about the availability of cash, the owners are fantastic, they’ll put the money in, they’ll spend it on infrastructure, they’ll spend it on staff, they’ll spend it on players, but we can’t spend it because we’ll be at the limit.
"Will it affect the January transfer window? It affects every transfer window. It is a real challenge and there’s a lot of noise in the industry at the moment about Financial Fair Play rules - will they change, won’t they change?
"And it’s frustrating. It’s frustrating when you’ll also see a lot of noise around clubs who have potentially breached and potentially have not been penalised. I struggle with that.
"And I think I’ve been really clear, I’ve said it both to the EFL and the EPL, the rules need to be tighter. If we’re going to have to have rules, you need to endorse them and you need to make sure that there are fail safes so that you can’t get round those rules in any shape or form, and I’m passionate about that.
"So, we start at a disadvantage because our revenues aren’t as high as other clubs, but we understand that and we’ll work to the maximum at every opportunity.
"The board has been fantastic, they’ve supported us at every opportunity, bringing 12 players in, moving players out, players returning to loan clubs. Re-contracting a number of players, the likes of Leif Davis etc, isn’t an easy task and it takes time and there’s a team of people who have worked really hard to do that.
"Kieran’s fundamental to that because the likes of a Leif Davis is not going to re-contract for this football club unless he thinks we’ve got a top, top manager who can help him develop him and take him forward.
"It’s been a challenging summer in all aspects. We’ve got more to do, again we’ll be active in January but we’re trying to build the club in a sustainable manner.”