CO-OWNER Jason Whittingham insists Warriors will not take the “very easy” option of slashing costs and becoming a Championship heavyweight.

Whittingham, who alongside Colin Goldring bought out Jed McCrory’s stake in the Sixways outfit earlier this month, has vowed to keep funding the Premiership salary cap of £7million in order to progress to the top six.

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Top-level rugby has come at a price over the years with Warriors losing millions of pounds per season under the regime prior McCrory’s consortium taking charge in October 2018.

Whittingham anticipates continuing to incur losses for the next three years while plans to develop and derive income from the site around the stadium come to fruition.

But he is adamant that funds for the playing side will be unaffected and expects the team to break the shackles of being considered perennial strugglers next term.

“You have to spend the cap. We always have since coming in and fully intend to continue that,” said Whittingham.

“The irony is we were still in a relegation battle so it is about how well we spend it.

“I would hope to see some improvement with the new signings Alan (Solomons, director of rugby) and Rory (Duncan, head coach) have identified for next season, I would not expect us to be in a relegation battle after the first five games as we were last season.

“When we built next year’s budget the first thing we added was the salary cap. It was a given, we have to spend it and while we are here we certainly will always spend it.

“It would be very easy for us to chop £4million off the wage bill and satisfy ourselves with being a Championship club. We would lose 20-25 per cent of our attendees but conferencing would still go on regardless.

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“We would break even, job done, but we don’t want to be a Championship club. That’s not the point.

“We would survive and always be in the Championship but we don’t want that. We want this to be a Premiership club and not just that.

“The first thing is to not be in a relegation dogfight for an entire season, it is to be pushing for sixth or seventh – preferably sixth but we are very realistic.

“Once you are sixth you are then competing in the Heineken Cup and that just takes it to a whole new level of depth in your squad and club.

“We are pushing for it but need to be prepared to survive when we are there, we don’t want to go into the Heineken Cup and just blow out.

"It will be a sustained, measured approach to get there.”