Several hundred people packed into Norwich City's annual general meeting tonight – and the mood inside was positive but subdued.

The Canaries are currently struggling in the Premier League, but are outside the dreaded drop zone.

Shareholders were told that in the current year, 71pc of the club's total income will come from the Premier League, up from 54pc last year.

And chief executive David McNally said the focus was staying in the Premier League, and finishing as high up the table as possible - clubs gets an extra £1.25 every position above 20th they finish this year.

He said: 'We have to stay in the Premier League, as our business model is based around that.

'But as a Premier League club we can help by embracing our community. There were 365 player visits in the year, and more are planned this year.'

He added: 'We have strengthened the squad with 10 new players, renewed contracts for several senior players that needed renewing.

'We have broken the transfer record a couple of times. We now have 28 players full-time in the Academy. They go to school in the morning and train with us in the afternoon.

'But we realise that some of the toilets at the stadium need improvement and we need to improve some of the kiosks.

'But this is the fifth AGM that this team has attended together, and we have not sold any player against our will in that time.'

Club chairman Alan Bowkett added that the club was no longer burdened by external debt, which at its maximum had been £21m.

He said: 'We have moved from substantial losses over a number of years. The previous year, but one, we made a great deal of profit in the Premier League. Last year we made less profit, as we wanted to invest in the football club.

'Our player investment moved up from negligible in League One and the Championship to almost £20m. I'm afraid that has to continue if we are going to compete.

'We invested £19.7m last year in new players, etc. If we want to extend the ground capacity, that would impact on player investment.'

He said thanks to the new football TV deal, if the club finished 20th and lost every game, they would still get £64m this year.

He added: 'When we were in the Championship, TV revenue was £5m.'

He said player costs at the club was £37m, which was an increase of 39pc on the previous year.

The average Premier League player is on £23-24,000 a week, he said. In the Championship the average player is on about £4,000 a week, in League One, £1,100 and League 2, £750 a week.

The average player at the richest club, Manchester City gets £101,000 a week.

The Premier League is watched by more than 800m people worldwide in 205 countries, he said.

The meeting was told that one of the club's directors, Stephen Fry was unable to attend, as he was in the US.