HULL City chairman Paul Duffen believes the club can get better value for money by investing in foreign players as they prepare for life in the Premier League.
Duffen has already given manager Phil Brown the go-ahead to spend the majority of the club's £35m promotion windfall on new talent this summer.
But Brown has quickly discovered that does not go far in the domestic market where strikers such as Por
tsmouth's David Nugent and Fulham's David Healy command £3m price tags and wages in excess of £1m a year.
Only last season, Sunderland manager Roy Keane spent £45m to ensure his club avoided an immediate return to the Football League.
Hull, playing in the top flight next season for the first time in their 104-year history, will be under the same sort of pressure.
Duffen last night confirmed that Brown is looking to bring in six new faces before the season kicks off on August 16. However, in order to recruit that many players it seems inevitable that he will spend in the foreign market.
Despite weekend speculation, Nugent will not be heading to the KC Stadium and Hull would prefer to re-acquire the services of former loanee Fraizer Campbell from Manchester United before gambling on Healy who scored only four goals last season in Fulham's relegation battle.
Duffen said: "We have lots of irons in the fire, but we are not going to comment on any speculation until a deal is done.
"We have a list of targets both in the UK and abroad and there is certainly better value for money in the overseas market.
"Domestic talent or foreign players who are already working in this country come at a high premium.
"There is no point in Hull City trying to bid against the top six clubs. We are now the minnows of the pack and we have to be creative in how we spend our money."
Thousands of Hull fans descended on the KC Stadium yesterday as season tickets went on sale to the general public for the first time.
Only 4,500 tickets had been available at the start of the day after nearly 16,000 were sold prior to the club's promotion. Stewards turned fans away after lunchtime and sales will be suspended for 24 hours pending a review of what is still available.
Under Premier League rules, clubs are not allowed to allocate more than 85 per cent of their stadium capacity to season ticket holders and must leave 10 per cent for away fans and a further five per cent for home matchday sales.
The KC Stadium has a capacity of 25,104 and the club expects sell-out gates for every game next season.
Some supporters had arrived on Saturday to be first in the queue and Duffen said: "I am not surprised by the demand because this is the first opportunity Hull supporters have had to buy a season ticket for Premier League football. We also set our prices before winning promotion and they represented fantastic value for money."
The full article contains 523 words and appears in n/a newspaper.
