Raith Rovers' £1 million deficit to rival clubs in promotion battle

With Don Cowie’s County and Simo Valakari’s Saints having received hefty parachute payments in addition to generous windfalls from their finishing positions in the Scottish Premiership in the last campaign, they would seem to be ‘one step ahead’ in the battle for William Hill Championship glory.

But Kilgour told Raith TV that he is hopeful about the Kirkcaldy men’s chances under Barry Robson, saying: "This is going to be the first year since I think 2021-'22 when we've got two clubs that have dropped down from the Premiership.

"They will have both come down with around £1.4 million, £1.5 million just in prizemoney.

"St Johnstone will get I think around a £300,000 parachute payment, Ross County will get a £500,000 parachute payment.

"To put that into context, we got about £330,000 for finishing fifth.

"Even if we'd finished second for example that would have been just £650,000.

"So it doesn't really scratch the surface with the money that we're getting compared to what they're coming down with.

"We will be a bit lower than some of the other teams in the league.

"But it doesn't mean to say that our ambitions are fifth in the league or sixth in the league.

"I think you look at our first season and there's absolutely no chance that we had a budget which was the second highest in the league. Yet we pushed Dundee United until the end of the season.

"I think that came from a blend of good recruitment, a good culture within the squad and I think there's no reason why we can't do that again this year.

"It's just trying to be creative, trying to be innovative. How can we increase the budget commercially to earn more money to increase the budget?

"But also with the existing budget, how can we work it hard to make sure we're getting better players with value rather than going for a lot of the kind of usual names that other clubs will be bidding high amounts for?

Kilgour said that last year, Raith’s budget had increased on the current board’s first year.

He added: “If you look at where we were at the start of the season, I would probably have said our budget would have been - I mean it's impossible to know - but you'd guess around fourth, fifth or sixth in the league.

"I think by the end of the season it was probably more seventh or eighth.

"And I think the reason it changed so much is because there was a lot of change at other clubs. I think Dunfermline and Hamilton's squads got to a size that was way bigger than ours.

"And so I think we would have probably dropped below that level.

"This season it's a good budget. Again, I would probably put it in the fifth or sixth level. It's really difficult in the Championship financially.”