Rovers chief executive Steve Waggott has questioned whether financial fair play can ever exist in the Championship with the golden ticket of the Premier League on the horizon.

Waggott admits Rovers’ revenue streams will struggle to compete with the division’s city-based clubs, with Stoke City posting losses of £33.7m this week, despite being in receipt of parachute payments.

Under profitability and sustainability rules, brought in to help bring about a level playing field in the second tier, Championship clubs are only allowed to lose £39m over three years.

A study last week found Championship sides ran up a record high total of £307m in pre-tax losses in 2017/18, with Birmingham City in March docked nine points for flouting the rules.

“We have numerous meetings with the EFL about profit and sustainability, Financial Fair Play, and there isn’t any financial fair play,” Waggott said.

“We’re a mill town in Lancashire and our revenues don’t compare to some of the big city clubs who we’re playing against.

“You go to Leeds and they’re full every week, 35,000, Bristol City, even after a midweek defeat to Millwall, they get over 20,000.

 “The solution? There’s a lot of discussions around it, but because of the gap between the Premier League and the Championship then owners are willing to have a go at trying to get there.

“Some more prudently than others. You have a complete spectrum of clubs.

“Villa went up last year with 40,000 every week and a wage bill four times ours, how do you compete against that unless you have a model that allows you to take your level of spend up should your owners be able to afford it, and can do it?”

The recent seven-figure additions of Sam Gallagher, Ben Brereton and Adam Armstrong, the breakthrough of Bradley Dack, and homegrown talents Darragh Lenihan, Ryan Nyambe and Lewis Travis have helped add significant value to the Rovers squad in recent years.

While the club have no intention of seeing any prized assets when the transfer window opens in January, the recruitment policy has centred on finding players whose value will increase.

The club hope the expansion of the recruitment department to include more in-depth analysis of Europe will bring its rewards moving forward and offers a possible way of recouping funds, rather than being simply reliant on owners Venky’s.

“The owners understand that when you build assets, and we do a valuation of the squad, from when Tony and I came in to now, there’s a lot of different assets in the squad where should the right offers be made then there would be decisions to be made,” Waggott added.

“At least we have some with value.

“Some clubs have squads with players who are paid quite a lot of money but there’s not a lot of value in them.

“I think we’ve progressed reasonably well, and with the investment in recruitment, the expansion in to Europe and across the UK then hopefully we’ll be able to find more young players who we can pick up and develop.

“Whether the owners go towards a model like Brentford where you sell players, or even Bristol City, they both sell well, they are both doing well.”