Huddersfield Town owner Kevin Nagle defends controversial season-ticket hike and makes worrying financial admission at League One club

The US entrepreneur has invested millions of pounds since taking over the club almost two years ago, but recently sanctioned the controversial move to substantially increase ticket prices, with some categories set to double in price. Many supporters are up in arms at the proposals.

Meanwhile, Nagle has revealed that the club are expecting to report a ‘substantial loss’ in their next set of yearly accounts, with the decision to increase season ticket prices also implemented to help boost revenue streams.

Speaking in a club interview, he said: "The reality is that in order to compete, there’s two things we have to consider.

"The EFL is going to impose a requirement where if you are in League One, 60 per cent of your revenue can be invested on players and salaries. Or, can we sustain up to a £42m loss over three years.

"The reality of it is that you need to boost your revenues in order to compete and if you want to continue to obtain high quality players. That’s really important.

"Or, in combination to reduce your losses. And we have got a substantial loss that we are looking at this year, I think, could be £15m or maybe as many as £20m.

"That’s almost half of what we would be allowed over a three-year period of time. It’s just a reality and fact.”

Nagle remains confident that the club will be ‘fully loaded and ready to go’ next term should they miss out on an instant return to the second-tier at the end of the season and envisages a ‘very active’ summer window, whatever transpires.

He added: "Our goal is to be in the Championship next year. There’s still a chance for us to be in the Championship.

"We have not been eliminated from automatic promotion and at the same time, we are in a play-off position. However if it does not happen, we will make plans to make sure there's going to be a 2025-26 season that will be fully loaded and ready to go.

"On social media, there’s been a lot of discussion about our player personnel. We have excellent players and one of the best squads in the league from a talent stand-point.

"There’s no question about that and I think there’s enough experts in the industry who would validate that as well to say we have one of the best clubs in the league.

"We’ve had some injuries, unfortunately a little bit more than the average team. There are more injuries today than in ‘yesterday's game’, but I would say we are going to be very active in the open market come summer because that is just the thing to do.

"We don’t know exactly where we are going to play yet - I believe it will be in the Championship and that will necessitate some upgrades in terms of quality of player, although I have a lot of belief in our current team. That reality is what a ‘best in class’ model and that’s what we will work towards.”

Meanwhile, Nagle has explained the thinking behind the decision to recently part company with Michael Duff and hand the interim reins for the rest of the season to Jon Worthington.

He continued: "I really liked Michael Duff a lot. I think in so many ways, he really was a great coach, but we know there was a time really in the season where it was a struggle.

"We worked with them to see if we could try and remedy those things, but unfortunately, we had to make the change.

"We are really excited to have Jon Worthington come on board. Jon bleeds Huddersfield Town AFC and is a Yorkshireman and so I am delighted and the reality of it is that you saw how Jon performed in his first match against Crawley. I am delighted and really enthusiastic about the last nine games.”