The Argus Letters page of Monday, February 10, unwittingly summarised how complex football’s finances have become.

Given their parlous state in recent years, it’s entirely reasonable for supporters (and even the odd Albion commentator) to be concerned by recent figures and subsequent opinions.

Mr Bishop calls on the club for “immediate action to cope with these operating losses”, Mr Dicker wants the club to reduce season-ticket prices for 18-21-year-olds while Mr Earl suggests our negotiating in the last transfer window was “abysmal”.

In light of these letters, I would like to provide perspective and reassurance on the recent financial announcement and our ongoing strategy.

The results, for the club’s second season at the Amex, do not include recent higher-value sponsorships or a full season at the Amex with a larger capacity, but they do reflect a number of one-off exceptional costs. It made sense to account for these costs at this time as there are no Financial Fair Play sanctions for last season.

For the past 18 months, the club has been tackling its operational costs and working hard to increase revenues. This combined effort has allowed us to slightly increase our football budget (even beyond the 41% increase in 2012/13) to support Oscar Garcia’s challenge for promotion this season.

One of the letter writers also questions our investment in the training ground and academy. It is essential for us to invest in a state-of-the-art facility. Bluntly, our current facilities – spread across the county – are not in line with the club’s ambitions. The new complex will help attract better players to the club. More importantly, the academy will help us attract and develop our own young players.

The proposed hotel is an entirely separate project, independent of the club, and won’t impact negatively on our finances. If it goes ahead, the potential benefits to the club of being able to attract more conferences and other non-matchday events mean it will support revenues rather than detract from them.

In setting season ticket prices for 2014/15, we had to balance the priorities of maintaining current momentum (23,000 season-ticket holders is one of the best in the country), attracting new fans (particularly children) and growing revenue to reduce our current losses.

We minimised adult price increases to an average of 3% and froze child prices but we have had to compromise somewhere.

We are aware there’s a jump in prices for someone turning 18 – as often there is in many things across all walks of life. Other companies impose an adult threshold at 16. There does come a point where a child becomes an adult, and that includes paying adult rates. That said, we will look at what we can do for the 18-21 age group for the 2015/16 season.

With regard to the transfer window, it makes good business sense for us not to disclose transfer fees. Regrettably, this does lead to speculation and judgements being made on transfer fees and whether they are good value or not.

We sold three players, all of whom wanted to leave for different reasons. Liam Bridcutt left for a club record fee (and significantly more than what was reported). Ashley Barnes, out of contract this summer, did not want to sign a new contract – he too was sold for a good fee. Adam El-Abd, having given excellent service to the club, wanted more regular first-team football; the club also received a decent fee for Adam.

We brought in Dale Stephens, Jon Obika and David Rodriguez. The wage demands of one other player were much higher than our own valuation so we didn’t proceed. We also turned down several other bids for key players.

Now, as the loan window opens, we have some money to bring in other players if Oscar feels he needs to strengthen.

Our early season injuries also gave our younger players opportunities and they have grasped them: Rohan Ince, Jake Forster-Caskey, Solly March and, recently, Lewis Dunk have each proved they are capable at first-team level. Having proved themselves worthy, we would much rather see our own talent flourish on the first-team stage as this sends a strong message to other young players in our system, and others we may try to attract, that there are first-team opportunities here.

We know there is still much to do but the Albion’s future has never looked brighter. We have phenomenal support, which continues to grow. We have a fantastic stadium, which attracts the highest average ticket sales in the Football League. We have world class sponsors in American Express and we will soon announce our largest-ever kit sponsorship deal. We are continuing to make our club more efficient and reducing costs.

We are close to completing a state of the art training ground and academy complex.

And, very significantly, despite the losses reported last week, our strong actions are working and we will meet our Financial Fair Play deficit target of £8 million this year.

Paul Barber, chief executive, Brighton and Hove Albion