WatFord chairman Jimmy Russo says he is willing to invest his own money into Watford if major shareholder Lord Michael Ashcroft also agrees to “come to the table”.

Lord Ashcroft’s company Fordwat Limited has a 37.16 per cent stake in the Hornets’ parent company Watford Leisure Plc and Russo, whose Valley Grown Salads (VGS) own 29.98 per cent, is keen for the billionaire to invest more money into the company.

During last week’s fans forum, Russo revealed he had saved Watford from administration three times since January by loaning the club £3.7m and the Hornets chairman hopes to meet with Lord Ashcroft at the end of this month to discuss possible investment.

In an exclusive interview with the Watford Observer, Russo said: “I’m quite prepared to put my money in, provided Lord Ashcroft is prepared to put his money in.

“We still need to sit down, hopefully before the end of the month and it’s down to Lord Ashcroft whether he contributes to the club’s position going forward or he doesn’t.

“I can’t speak for him but I’m prepared to put my money where my mouth is, however, it’s down to him.

“But we have also got assets that are worth a lot of money. It shouldn’t be seen as we are going to have to sell all our best players that we have.”

Last Friday, Watford Leisure released a statement confirming that “significant funding needs to be put in place” before December and there is the possibility of new equity for the club’s major shareholders.

If sufficient funds are not raised then the statement claimed alternative sources of funding would have to be found.

The statement also gave a full breakdown of the money the Russo brothers have lent the club.

Russo was already owed £160,000 when, in January, VGS lent the club £1.82m.

This was supposed to have been repaid using the Hornets final four Premier League parachute payments but the Russos felt they had to delay the repayment.

The brothers then loaned Watford £650,000 at the end of July and a further £1.25m in August.

The £1.82m from January, £650,000 from July and a previous £160,000 has been consolidated into a single loan of £2.63m and will be repaid within the next 12 months, at an interest rate of LIBOR (the inter-bank lending rate which is currently 0.594) plus 3.5 per cent.

VGS has been granted security over Vicarage Road Stadium, which means the Russos could effectively sell the Hornets’ ground if they are not repaid, although this is highly unlikely to happen and is used as a safety net.

The £1.25m loan from August will be repaid in three installments when money from this summer’s player sales arrives, at an interest rate of seven per cent per annum.

“We had no other options what so ever,” Russo said. “Failure to do that every time would have meant administration and we could not afford to do that.”

When the Russo brothers returned to Watford’s board in January they were told that even with this summer’s expected £4m windfall from player sales, the club had a £8.5m shortfall to fill before June 2010.

The unexpected sale of Mike Williamson meant the club received more money than expected during this transfer window, even if a large sum of the fees will arrive in installments.

When asked whether the shortfall was still £8.5m, Russo replied: “No, now it would be less.

“I haven’t got the final details because of Heider [Helguson] and [Craig] Cathcart joining, but that now will become a lot clearer over the next few days when I get the numbers. But we are a lot happier with the financial position now.

“But we still need the next bit of investment going forward, that is if Lord Ashcroft wants to come to the table.”

More than £6m was raised through player sales this summer but Watford also knocked millions off its wage bill, although it is still not at the level they would like.

The chairman said: “The whole idea is to try and get it down to a real respectable level of £6m or £7m, that is were we really need to be so the business isn’t dependent on any hand outs.

“We are still quite a considerable way off because we have players on big contracts still that were towards the end of the last generation of board’s signings.”