Stevenage will make budget cuts

Wallace has cut short a holiday in the US to deal with the situation

Stevenage Borough chairman Phil Wallace has revealed the club will have to tighten their budgets following the collapse of broadcaster Setanta.

The Blue Square Premier club are set to lose around £100,000 and Wallace has cut short a holiday to deal with it.

He told the club website: "I have to go over the budgets again.

"We will have to make cuts in a number of areas to find £100,000. Some things that we took for granted before will have to be scrutinised now."

He continued: "We lived dangerously last year but fantastic results got us out of jail.

"If we hadn't done so well on the pitch we'd have lost a lot of money.

"Now add the loss of £100,000 before we've even kicked a ball and you'll see what we're talking about.

Anyone that thinks it's not a problem must be barking mad. It's a big enough problem for me to fly back from the US so that should tell you something

Stevenage Borough chairman Phil Wallace

"Up until a few days ago it wasn't worth discussing. One day we'd lost them, the next we hadn't. I knew that the Conference weren't due to invoice Setanta for this coming season until 1 July with payment due 30 days later, so speculating and acting on conjecture was a waste of time, especially since we already have the players we wanted.

"However the news now makes it virtually certain that we've lost this income. I've seen talk of £70,000 per club but it would have been over £100,000 as the Setanta contract had annual uplifts built in. So that's gone and anyone that thinks that's not a problem must be barking mad. It's a big enough problem for me to fly back from the US so that should tell you something.

"At Stevenage we're lucky. We have good financial backing from the directors, no debts whatsoever, cash in the bank and varied income streams, so we don't have to think about selling players to raise emergency cash.

"We will certainly need the help and support of our fans through the gates this season if we are to maintain a challenge for honours. That will be crucial. If we get that we can probably weather the storm, but if we don't we may have to reduce how much we're spending in whatever way we can."