Hatters CEO up for the ‘insane’ task of getting Kenilworth Road ready for Premier League

​Luton chief executive Gary Sweet is relishing the insanity of the ‘race’ to get Kenilworth Road Premier League ready by the time Town’s first home game of the season against Burnley kicks off on Saturday, August 19.

The Hatters were given an away fixture for their return to the top flight, travelling to Brighton & Hove Albion on the opening weekend, as they are back in Bedfordshire a week later to face Vincent Kompany’s team.

With the Bobbers Stand undergoing it’s near enough complete rebuild to ensure all the new facilities needed for broadcasting Premier League fixtures are in place, at a huge cost to Luton, with just seven weeks to go, then speaking to Five Live Sport earlier in the week, Sweet said: "We're actually looking at around 12, 13 million pounds worth of work just at Kenilworth Road.

"Kenilworth Road is a unique stadium, for its good and bad, it's a unique stadium, but it's certainly not Premier League ready.

"That money, we're not challenging it at all, we just have to be Premier League ready, so that has to be spent and clearly there's a race to get that done.

"We're targeting the Burnley fixture to be ready in case we're shown on TV.

"That's what the majority of work is going on, to achieve a media friendly facility, so that money has to be spent now.

"It really is economic gymnastics and we’re relocating our offices as we don't have sufficient space to accommodate the new staff we're bringing in, so the knock on effects are just ridiculous.

"Moving offices in the short space of the summer window would be enough, but doing everything else as well, most normal people would call it insane.

"But we have to do it, we don't have a choice, and we do love a challenge here at Luton."

Having been in the Conference back in 2014, Town have had plenty of previous experience regarding moving up a division, having done it on a fairly regular basis during the last decade.

That will help the Hatters in their bid to be ready though, as Sweet continued: “The thing about us is we rely on process.

"We've done this now three times, got promoted, whilst the scales are different, moving from one division through to another, the processes do remain the same.

"We are quite fortunate enough to have experienced that three times, so we're relying on those processes as well.

"It is the same thing, we are going to be sensible, remembering we got promoted into the Premier League, finished third in the division by having a bottom five, six budget anyway.

"We're used to being able to manage that value, so I think we're looking at this as an exciting challenge rather than a problem.”

With the outgoings racking up for Luton, due to the work already undertaken on the Bobbers Stand, asked when they will see some incomings on the balance sheet, Sweet added: “The first chunk of money you get from the Premier League is the middle of July, so there is a little survival methodology that we've had to deploy between getting promoted where an awful lot of money has been going out.

"But we’re actually a club that isn't generally cash short.

"We operate a really tight P and L (profit and loss) so we’re okay with cash getting through.”

“We're in a good place in that point of view, but it is hard on clubs getting through to that period.”