SWINDON Town owner Clem Morfuni has stated the club’s budget will increase by almost 50 per cent for the 2022-23 season.

Morfuni’s first season as Town’s custodian required large sums of money to be injected in order to clear the swathes of debt left behind by the former regime.

While the Australian’s administration worked to reduce the monies owed to various companies or organisations from £4.5 million to £1.7 million this term, the enforced transfer embargo – as a result of previous misdemeanours at the club – saw the playing budget affected.

But with payment plans in place and more fires having been put out than not, Morfuni can turn his attention to giving next season’s squad the best possible chance of going one better than in 2021-22.

Dismissing claims that the budget would be going down next season due to more recently-discovered debt, Morfuni said: “The budget this year compared to the budget last year – I won’t tell you the exact figure – but it’s gone up 40 per cent.

“So I don’t know how people can say we’ve got no money. We’re refurbishing the club shop, you can see we’re refurbishing the pitch.

“We’re doing up the training ground too; we’ve just finished sorting all the pitches at the training ground, and we’re putting in some cabinets there as well.

“We’ve put a lot of investment into our facilities, so for people to say we’ve got no money, I don’t understand that.”

In amongst the serious discussion of numbers, Morfuni revealed the club’s new kit will be announced in the coming weeks.

Town’s chairman also turned his attention to talk of upgrading the County Ground pitch and a decent overhaul at the club’s Beversbrook training facility.

He said: “Yes, there are certain items that need to be sorted out – thing we’ve put in the advisory board minutes – but we’re cash-flowing it, we’re working out our revenue, we’re working out our expenditure.

“I’ve been going through numbers this week making sure we can do this or saying ‘let’s change that’ in regard to invoices and supplies. There’s no issue there.

“If we find that it’s worth investing that little bit more, for example we’re refurbishing the shop. That’s important for us because we’ve got a new kit coming up.

“And we’re sorting out the pitch which is obviously important for us in a football sense. People can talk, and that’s fair enough, but there’s no issue with the budget.”