City's shareholders will not pocket another windfall until the club is back in the Premiership and can afford to splash the cash.

Chairman Geoffrey Richmond outlined the two-pronged policy statement at last night's two-and-a-half hour annual meeting to put the lid on the rumbling controversy over dividend pay-outs at Valley Parade.

And he said: "Under no circumstances will it be prior to the club returning to the Premier League which is the driving force behind my hopes going forward.

"I've been there for two years and want to return. And I know that every supporter and employee of this club wants to return."

Richmond has revealed that shareholder bonuses have been paid out twice - when City won promotion and then in August 2000 after they had survived their first year in the top flight.

"A dividend of £3.2m was paid at a time when having just survived in the Premier League, the club had already embarked on the purchase of seven new players. It was also paid at a time when the £7.4m investment in the new stand and facilities were under way.

"It cannot be said that the money available for team strengthening or ground improvements were in any way affected. Hindsight is wonderful and nine months later we found ourselves relegated - but as I will stress, the last dividend payment was made when the world looked a rather different place than today.

"I make no apologies whatsoever for the dividend policy. It was there to reward investors and to hopefully encourage additional ones. Unfortunately that part has been a total failure because new investors are as scarce as ice cream in the desert."

Richmond collected just over £2m in the two pay-outs, working out at £250,000 for every year of his reign as chairman.

He said: "To put it in perspective, our top-paid footballer (Benito Carbone) will receive in one year an amount equivalent to that I've received for eight.

"For the first six years of that period I drew no money, no wages, no expenses, no dividends, no income of any sort. I worked full time probably on average 70 hours a week, sometimes 52 weeks a year.

"My health has suffered as a result of the efforts and energies that I've put into this club. And during that period, millions of pounds worth of loans and guarantees were put in by myself and my colleagues.

"The promotion push in June 1999 was fueled by the four directors personally guaranteeing £5m so that Paul Jewell could go into the transfer market. The only people at risk if things had gone wrong were the directors.

"When promotion was achieved, the directors felt it appropriate to pay dividends. Then we survived our first season in the Premier League and it was felt appropriate to pay them again.

"It's not been a secret and a further 350 shareholders also received dividends. Not a single dividend cheque has ever been received back.

"As I stated at the weekend, the directors are totally committed to financially support the club. We will increasingly need to do so with losses inevitable this financial year and almost certainly next year.

"That's a statement behind which the principle shareholders of this club stand firmly."