HARRIERS chairman Barry Norgrove has backed the Football Conference's drive to scrutinise club finances in a bid to stop them going out of business.

Financial problems have seen Halifax Town, Boston United and Nuneaton Borough lose their place in the competition this summer and the league is eager to prevent the traditional end of season chaos.

All 68 clubs in the Premier, North and South divisions will have to follow the new Financial Reporting Protocol, which ensures they will have to provide detailed quarterly financial reports, including payments to the Inland Revenue, to the Conference.

However, clubs will no longer have to follow the Approved Playing Budget, which ensured clubs could only spend a certain percentage of their budget on player wages.

"I think it's the right decision by the league to bring in these new rules, because we have seen too many clubs get into trouble for spending too much money," said Norgrove.

"This will force clubs to be more prudent and not put themselves in a situation where they endanger their club.

"Too often people swoop into a club and spend a lot of money in the short term but have no desire to stay for very long.

"There's no money to be made investing in a football club and quite often they will pull out and leave them in a poor state."

Harriers are one of a number of clubs trying to balance the books and are working on a tight budget, after the average attendance dropped to below 1,600 last season.

However, the chairman warned that big-money investers willing to plough money into the team are not always the solution to a club's problems.

Norgrove said: "Fans always want someone with big financial resources come in and buy the club but it's also important to have someone who cares about it as well.

"We are trying to do our best for the club and to run it properly and the fans don't always see that.

"I am working harder now than I did in the season to bring in people who want to put money into the club.

"We are working on a tight budget and aren't willing to spend money we don't have on the team. It's more important to keep Harriers running and try and build steadily.

"We have to look at what Graham Turner has done at Hereford and try and replicate that success on a small budget.

"Don't get me wrong, I would love to be able to spend a lot of money on new players but in the current situation we are going to have to be prudent.

"The manager is biding his time until players are out of contract. He has spoken to several targets who want too much money but we'll see what happens when their contracts are up at the end of the month."

The chairman also predicted that attendances in the 2008-2009 campaign might be affected by rising food, bill and fuel prices.

Norgrove has blamed the slow down in the economy as the reason why season ticket sales are already lower than at the same point last year.

Norgrove commented: "With the way the economy is at the moment I think we will struggle with attendances next season.

"The price of things is going up and it has already started to affect our season ticket sales, which will have a knock-on effect on how much money we have.

"It means that it's even more vital that the club remains on a sound financial footing."