EWOOD chief John Williams today hailed Graeme Souness as the 'future of the club'.

Williams said: "There is absolutely no doubt in my mind we should stick with Graeme."

And Souness has already told the Evening Telegraph, he would be keen to sign a new contract, saying: "If we have a good season, then I'll be talking to the chief executive about the possibility of a new deal."

Williams was speaking candidly about the future of Blackburn Rovers in an exclusive interview with our panel of Lancashire Evening Telegraph jurors.

Williams agreed to go on 'trial' in front of our jury in a specially convened meeting at Ewood Park last week and tonight we bring you the verdict in what is one of the frankest ever interviews given by the Blackburn Rovers chief executive.

Williams reveals:

The role Jack Walker's trust fund pays in the club.

How Rovers would find it hard to get back if they were ever relegated.

How dropping attendances are affecting the club.

Moving from Ewood Park could never be ruled out.

The possibilities of signing a top player like Rivaldo.

The importance of the Academy at Brockhall.

The Evening Telegraph's Blackburn Jury - consisting of born and bred Rovers fans - have been delivering their verdicts on the club, both on and off the pitch, every Thursday in the paper over the past year. Here, the club's chief executive, John Williams, gives six members of the Jury a special chance to ask the questions they really want answering . . .

JURY: A lot has been said and written about attendances this season. What's your view on the level of support Rovers are currently getting?

JOHN: This year was the year I wanted us to go from 26,000 to 30,000.

On the face of it, it sounded daunting but we felt it must be possible and we had to have a go for it.

That was where we were coming from in June and July. We'd just finished sixth in the league which was a phenomenal achievement.

Then to my disappointment, in the year when we were trying to go for 30,000, season ticket sales actually fell.

Effectively, around 1,500 of our 17,000 season ticket holders didn't renew in the summer, which is a huge percentage, and it was a serious blow.

I was hoping they'd still be encouraged to come on a match-to-match basis but that hasn't happened so far either and I really am beginning to wonder what we have to do, but we won't throw in the towel. I do accept that our home form has not been great but, ironically, that's when we want people to turn out and support us.

JURY: What difference does the slump in attendances make in financial terms?

JOHN: Our total income through the gates adds up to about £7 million. At many clubs it will be double that figure and for the big five many times more. It's the one area that's killing us. And yet, we are trying to compete on the field. Our fans have high expectations and that costs money. The relationship between wage bills and league position is frightening.

There are always exceptions that buck the trend but, generally speaking, the three or four highest wage bills in the land will finish first, second, third and fourth.

So the bottom line is we don't really generate enough income to pay the wages that we are paying but, strategically, if we ran a wage bill the size of Bolton's or Charlton's, for example, then in any given cycle of three or four years, we might get relegated.

And if this club gets relegated in the post-Jack Walker era we fear it would be extremely difficult to get back. Those are powerful words and I'm only expressing an opinion but I absolutely believe that would be the situation and we could end up in the bottom half of the First Division. We cannot get relegated under any circumstances, hence the reason we stretch ourselves and pay over 75 per cent of our income on wages, but we can't go on doing that indefinitely.

JURY: What's the long-term solution then? Cut costs or try and find ways of generating more income through the turnstiles?

JOHN: The bottom line is we don't sell enough tickets. We haven't got a big enough active fan base. Don't get me wrong, the percentage of the indigenous population who come to games is phenomenal. London clubs and Manchester clubs would give their right arm for support of that density but we simply don't have enough people. From a purely business point of the view, the answer could be to charge existing season ticket holders even more. We've got to make the extra money up somehow so one option would be to double the prices. We've got 12,000 who are going to come whatever happens so it might be tempting to think you could charge them whatever you like because they are on the hook.

But we won't do that. I'm very conscious of the amount of money we take off the fans that come as it is and I won't take more off them.

That is just not right. It would be morally wrong and we'll just not do it.

JURY: One of the main benefits of being a season ticket holder is that you are guaranteed a good seat for every game. Why do we then expect the less committed to pay more for the seats with the poorer views? Could the club not adopt an Easyjet approach to the seats that aren't already filled by season ticket holders?

JOHN: This idea of the season ticket holder paying the premium price for the premium package is a great one, except it's exactly what Blackburn season ticket holders don't accept, and won't accept.

When most people buy a season ticket at Rovers they expect a saving against match day prices.

If a Manchester United fan was to have a baby then the first thing they would do is get its name down for a season ticket at Old Trafford because of the bragging rights of having a season ticket for United.

Here, for most fans it's not quite like that. We sell season tickets on a price-discounting basis, otherwise we wouldn't sell enough. And once you've set yourself that trap, you've put yourself in a very difficult position when it comes to discounts, which is why some season ticket holders get annoyed when they see promotions and cheap tickets.

The reality is the real advantage of being a season ticket holder is you don't have to queue, you don't have to book, and you don't have to go through long-winded messages on ticket office hotlines. It's effectively your guarantee and there's a benefits package that goes with it. But we have to market it as a discount, rightly or wrongly, because that's the hook we are on and if we don't do that then sales would fall even further.

JURY: What about offering season ticket holders the chance to bring a friend along to a game for free as a way of attracting new fans to Ewood?

JOHN: One of the things we are always fearful about when we make offers, particularly to season ticket holders, is the dreaded substitution.

What I mean by that is we know that on top of our 15,000 season ticket holders there are another 5,000 Blackburn fans who will buy a ticket.

There will also be a thousand or so complimentaries made up of school children etc and there might be two or three thousand opposition fans, too, which combines to make up the average gate.

If you then put offers out to your season ticket holders, some of those offers will fall into the hands of those 5,000 fans who would have bought a ticket anyway. That's fine from time to time but it's not

really addressing the problem. We are targeting offers at new fans to generate new revenue

JURY: Given what's been said about the need to boost income through attendances, can you explain what role Jack Walker's trustees play in the funding of Blackburn Rovers and exactly how much is that backing worth a season?

JOHN: There is no specific pot of money for Blackburn Rovers. The reality is that Blackburn Rovers is a beneficiary of a trust fund set up by Jack Walker and there are other beneficiaries who I'm not able to tell you about for obvious reasons.

The trustees are essentially Jersey-based lawyers and businessmen but include one of Jack's life-long business colleagues, David Brown, who is on our board.

There's no secret Jack was very passionate about Rovers but he also wanted this club to wash its face. He wanted it to break even. That was his strong message to me and, of course, his trustees know that.

So we've struck an arrangement where at the moment they are prepared to put in an amount of money on a per annum basis, which is roughly equal to 5,000 extra fans through the gate.

JURY: If the European Union try to block the new TV deal, how would Rovers be affected?

JOHN: If the EU were to rule out our new TV deal then Blackburn Rovers would be a huge loser because collective selling suits us. If we were selling on an individual basis then broadcasters would not be interested in the fact that we are a good team with a good track record. They are mainly interested in how many people are going to watch the games so they would look at our fan base and on that basis, we could be left trying to pick up the scraps.

Therefore, we need the central collective deal and I also think the other 19 clubs do as well. I believe the sum of the parts is greater than the individuals and the arrangements we have in place have led to one of the most exciting sporting competitions in Europe. I'd be a worried man if we were out there trying to negotiate our own TV deal. We'd struggle.

JURY: Do the club have any plans to redevelop the CIS Stand?

JOHN: If we had £10 million to spend right now then it would need to go into the team in order to make sure we continue to stay in the Premier League.

The other danger is a new stand might become something of a white elephant because, based on current attendances, it would be half empty.

At the moment, the CIS Stand currently holds 6,000 and you'd probably look to build something that holds 10,000. That would take our total capacity up to 35,000, which would allow us to stage even the odd B international, but would we want a 35,000 capacity stadium with a 25,000 average gate? So that's maybe one for the future.

JURY: Traffic is becoming an increasing problem around Ewood on matchdays. Would you ever consider moving to a new ground closer to the M65 at some point in the future?

JOHN: Not in the medium term but it would be foolish to rule it out forever. If the hallowed marble halls of Highbury can move then I'm pretty sure Ewood Park could move, too.

A lot would depend on the council's approach to planning and zoning and what Ewood Park was worth. But I do worry about access to Ewood and, as people get more picky and choosy, the A666 is a problem.

JURY: Back in the Eighties, Don Mackay suddenly shocked us all when he signed Steve Archibald on loan from Barcelona. Would the club ever consider making a move for someone like Rivaldo in the present climate, considering it might put a few more bums on seats?

JOHN: I believe one of the top five clubs were recently reported to have said that Rivaldo wouldn't be joining them because it would damage the balance in the dressing room in terms of their wage structure.

My own personal view is that can you can always make an exception for a very talented loan or short-term contract player. Footballers, in the experience that I've had working with them, would generally accept high wages for a player if he was good enough. Where it can go horribly wrong is if you bring someone in on big earnings and they don't deliver. Then it becomes a big problem. In any event the manager picks the players not the board.

JURY: When the club were going through a sticky point earlier this season, was Graeme Souness's position at the club ever in doubt?

JOHN: There was absolutely no doubt in my mind that we should stick with Graeme. I always thought our bad run was temporary. All the players on the field came here for Graeme and even Jansen, Flitcroft and Short, the three players who were here before him, have all signed new contracts under Graeme.

What people thought we'd achieve by changing I'm not sure. I think continuity is essential and I'd like Graeme to stay for as long as he wants to stay.

If he came in to me and said 'the players hate me' or 'my health won't let me carry on' then that's a different scenario. But I think he's right for our club and I'd like to see him here for some time to come.

JURY: How do you see the rest of the season?

JOHN: I want Graeme, the players, and the coaches to understand the size of the fight ahead.

This isn't a case of 'Oh, don't worry. We'll win the next two games and go up to halfway.'

The reality now is that we are going to be in a fight at least until the end of January, even if things go well.

We need to be up for the fight on the pitch, in the seats, around the ground and in the Press.

By that, I don't mean to say it's going to be a dog-fight. I still think we can easily finish in the top half. But I don't think it's going to be easy because we've got ourselves into a tricky position.

JURY: Are you pleased with the amount of players being produced by the Academy?

JOHN: It's the hardest thing in the world to produce players who are capable of playing at this level. I think we've got one of the best around and the staff who run it are excellent. But could you use the £2.5m it costs to run the Academy better? It's debatable.

These days, your money goes further in the post-Bosman transfer market and that puts pressure on the Academy to produce players. The plus side of the Academy is your home-grown players become even more important when you're in a financial position where it's difficult to generate wads of cash. A lot also goes into producing the modern day footballer and Academies do that well.

Ours is excellent but they know that they are judged on getting people through and I think we've done okay.