ROVERS Chief Executive Steve Waggott has revealed the club’s budget for next season have been drawn up, whichever division Rovers find themselves in.

Tony Mowbray’s men are in the driving seat for an automatic promotion spot in League One with just five games left.

And Waggott, as well as the club’s owners Venky’s, are planning their war chest for the next campaign.

And the CEO believes Rovers have stabilised under Mowbray, despite a £3.8million loss in their accounts, taking net liabilities to £109m.

Waggott said: “We have to work under the financial fair play regulations, which is a rolling three-year programme on the amount clubs are allowed to spend so once we know what league we’re in that can be finalised.

“We have already done an indicative programme for both sides of the coin so if, god forbid, we don’t get up we’ll have a League One budget and if we go up we’ll have a Championship budget.

“We have to try and upgrade and keep progressing. We are trying to rebuild the club and create a good platform for further success.

“But like I’ve said to the owners, the league above, the Championship, is like Premier League 2. At the moment you have eight or nine teams with parachute payments and another three coming down.

“If only two of those go up you could have 11 teams with £40million in terms of finances so we have to be smart and operate smart in the market. We have just restructured all of our recruitment and talent ID area and we have put a lot of money into that to try and get the players early before other teams get them signed up.”

On the state of the club’s finances, he said: “For a club of this size to operate with that small loss shows a significant investment from the owners.

“My contact with the owners is regular and it’s well-documented that I’ll be going across to India at least four times a year to meet them face to face and give them a quarterly update on the club.

“We also talk on a weekly-basis and there’s also a lot talk about season tickets, corporate hospitality, sponsorship etc once we know what division we are going to be in so we’re in the throes of that now with the forward planning.”