Jersey Reds: Championship side's finances improve ahead of new season

Jersey Reds were fourth in the Championship last season - their best-ever finish

Jersey Reds chairman Mark Morgan says the club's finances have improved over the past few years.

The Championship club were forced to sell their ground for £1.5m in November 2016 in order to see out the season.

The Reds bought back St Peter in February 2018 after agreeing a 10-year loan with a group of investors.

"Without disclosing the figures, we didn't lose money (last season), which is a good place to be in and much better than we were," Morgan said.

Morgan says the league visit of London Irish, who brought with them between 1,000 and 1,500 fans, as well as hosting the bi-annual Siam Cup game with Guernsey helped boost Jersey's coffers.

Meanwhile, new long-term sponsorship deals - such as a new six-year agreement with lead sponsors Santander International - has helped with financial planning.

"If you have to renew all your sponsors every year it's literally starting from scratch every year and it's a lot of work and also hard to plan against that because you don't know where you're going to end up," Morgan told BBC Radio Jersey.

"With most of our top sponsors now we're in multi-year deals and that gives us the knowledge that we're going to have a certain base to work from in the coming year and that means we can hire appropriately.

"We're hiring in October and November for the next summer, so you need to be almost 18 months ahead of the game. You need to know where you're going to be so you can invest appropriately."