Carlisle United directors have insisted there is no reason why they cannot sustain a promotion challenge on their current budget.

The Blues' player spending is said to be in the bottom six of League Two.

Chief executive Nigel Clibbens has denied that their football budget will be cut further next season.

And the director has stressed that their spending levels should be no impediment to reaching League One.

"From a club point of view, our budget is not a barrier to achieving promotion," he said.

"A sustained promotion push can be mounted on our existing budget."

Clibbens' comment came as United used their official website to present answers to more questions from supporters which were submitted for the recent fans' forums.

Another question challenged the hierarchy to offer a clear definition of success and failure for next season.

Clibbens replied: "I said at the second forum [that] there is a difference between success and progress. On-field – the definition of success for the club in 2021/22 is promotion to League One. Failure is not achieving that success objective.

"There are other definitions of on and off-field success, but they are all secondary to the top objective of promotion.

"There are other definitions of progress which are needed to be made to contribute the success."

Clibbens reiterated that United would continue to "do all we can to maximise the budget by not risking the rest of the club".

He also said the Blues' bid to get ahead meant they aimed not to inflict any Covid-enforced spending cuts on the football side of the club, with off-field operations taking any such measures instead.

He maintained that Carlisle had avoided reducing their football spending even when fans were unable to attend games for a long period.

Clibbens also referred to the awarding of new, improved contracts to staff and players, reducing squad "churn", and investing in the pitch and training pitch,

The director also said Carlisle were "actively looking at" an initiative aimed at boosting the attendance for the first home game of next season when crowds are allowed back into Brunton Park.

Director of football David Holdsworth also responded to a question from a fan who said "ambitionless" and "bottlejobs" were words that fans associated with the Blues in recent years, rather than terms such as "DNA" and "accountability" - words used by Holdsworth when he arrived at the club.

Holdsworth said "bottlejobs" was not "an adequate or sincere" term for the way Carlisle have functioned since he had been at Bruton Park.

"I do believe that our ‘DNA’ and ‘accountability’ is reflected in the way the club is operating now," Holdsworth added.

"We also collectively have huge ambition and drive, and we face every challenge that comes our way.

"Inside the football department we have high ambition and we’d like to be able to deliver the fruits of that as soon as possible.

"In terms of this [2020/21] season, there are many things you need to reflect on, but I don’t want bore you with those because you’ll have heard them already.

"What I can assure you is that we have a lot of ambition, and everybody inside the football department is very accountable."

He added: "Nobody is more ambitious than myself and the team of people I work alongside, and we’ll continue to do everything we can to support Chris [Beech] – as we have since he arrived.

"Whilst we finished a few points outside the play-offs, anybody who has to deal with Saturday-Tuesday games for 11 weeks would have found it tough. It really took its toll, but the players and the staff gave everything."