West Ham United co-owner David Sullivan admits they face a massive battle to get highly paid fringe players off their books.
Debts are still estimated by the owners at £100 million and the Sullivan-Gold regime is grappling with the balance sheet they inherited.
Sullivan told the Telegraph: "The club is trading at a £30 million loss, which myself and David Gold have both funded, but both the trading loss and debts will be reduced gradually with the support of ourselves, hopefully new investors, and the banks."
It has meant, however, that "there are restrictions on what we can pay for players and what wages we can pay", Sullivan claimed.
"But we have added eight players to the wage bill - only two came off, so a net increase of six players - and some of the new players are highly paid. As we work down existing contracts, so we will become more ambitious in our spending.
"Our problem is our wages budget has contractually been spent on players we inherited. Some players' wages are so high it's impossible to give them away, let alone get a fee for them."
