Bradford City can fight tooth and nail to keep Benito Carbone after chairman Geoffrey Richmond stuck an extra 50 per cent on the player budget for next season.

Richmond swept away the gloom engulfing Valley Parade by drastically upping the club's wage limit for the First Division to £7.5 million - with the promise of more cash available after Christmas if City are in a position to push for promotion.

The cash injection means that boss Jim Jefferies is no longer under pressure to sell players. He is now hopeful of keeping the likes of Eoin Jess, Stuart McCall and possibly Robert Molenaar - and will not be forced to sell Carbone.

Even including the top-earning Italian, the current squad comes in under the new financial bar allowing City to stick a hefty price tag on their star man.

Jefferies said: "Beni has said that if we proved we are ambitious and can keep the players we've got here, then he'd be happy to stay.

"I've gone on record as saying that I want to keep him at the club and unless we get an offer and Beni wants to move then hopefully that will be the case.

"You don't know what's going to happen in the summer and a Premiership club could come in. But there is no pressure whatsoever to sell him now.

"Beni will be too quick for First Division defenders and if we can protect him from getting kicked off the park at times then he will be a tremendous asset in helping us to come back up."

Jess rejected City's original three-year offer last week but Jefferies came out of yesterday's meeting with the chairman and immediately contacted the midfielder again. He said: "I spoke to him on holiday in Cyprus and said I might be in the position to make a more attractive offer and hope when he returns we can sort something out.

"Robert Molenaar was concerned about whether we could keep the present squad and now we've got the news that we can he will be notified. He has got other options but we desperately want him to stay."

City also hope to tempt McCall, unhappy at being offered a 60 per cent pay cut, with the possibility of a testimonial match in his final year as a player.

Richmond revealed the huge cash boost to Jefferies just hours ahead of last night's fans forum at Valley Parade and 800 supporters were there to hear the good news.

He said: "In the last couple of months, Jim has always said that if he can keep this squad and possibly add to it, we can do extremely well in Division One. Now he doesn't have to sell anybody.

"We did our housekeeping and we did it well and the season-tickets sales have brought in almost £2 million at the present time.

"Because of the improving outlook and looking at the figures hard, the board have felt able to make the extra finances available."

Back-up goalkeeper Aidan Davison could follow Lee Sharpe and Matt Clarke out of Valley Parade and Jefferies said: "There's obviously gping to be movement."

Jefferies continues to be linked with former Hibernian star Russell Latapy but he dismissed any suggestions that he was planning to make a move for the player.