Hereford chairman highlights difficulty with hybrid model

The Bulls currently pay their players on a part-time basis with training on the outskirts of Birmingham on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, with other online and virtual coaching methods also used.

This allows players to work a full-time job alongside their playing career.

Moving to a hybrid or full-time playing structure on the current wage budget could result in a different market of players.

Ammonds said that the club could move into a hybrid model of some morning training sessions each week, but a decision was made to remain part-time.

Speaking on Radio Hereford FC before Saturday’s game against Bromsgrove Sporting he said: “We could have gone hybrid this season. If we'd have wanted to, if Aaron (Downes) had said that he wanted us to go hybrid.

“We would have supported the move to hybrid. The problem we would have had is we wouldn't have had any more money to spend on the hybrid wages.

“It would have had to have been done on the football budget that we have made available.

“Aaron said to me ‘you end up with the lower end of the full time players’.

“I'd love nothing more than for us to go full-time. It's what I want more than anything in reality, I think it’s what any of us would.

“There are lots and lots and lots of elements to it. The difficulty is, like a lot of things, is how you fund it, to actually get the most out of it and actually make everything better.

“What you don't want is go down the route of doing it, even hybrid, but end up with a lesser player, and you might not be able to get them to the level that you get two nights a week. It's such a difficult thing.”

Meanwhile, Ammonds said that the club need to take a proactive approach in talking with Herefordshire Council about the empty Blackfriars End of the stadium.

He added: “I think we are going to have to be a little bit proactive about that, in terms of coming up with ideas and thinking what we need to do.

“We’d rather try and do something a little bit more permanent at that end. I feel that's the way to go.

“How you raise the money for that is going to be part of our ongoing conversations because you're going to have to bring in private investment for a build like that.

“I'm not talking about private investment for the football club. You've got to be able to fund a facility if you're looking at doing it. So we need to look at that type of thing.

“I want to sit down and have some real conversations with the council first because actually we need to understand whether they've got a willingness to talk to us about us taking on the Blackfriars End.

“I think we've probably got to go to them with potentially a vision.”