Stewart Donald’s stark financial admission as Sunderland ‘Til I Die chronicles failed Mark Campbell takeover talks

The second instalment of the docu-series, which is set to return to Netflix on April 1, follows Donald and former executive director Charlie Methven as they bid to turn around the club’s off-field fortunes.

And while they make plenty of positive progress, it doesn’t take long for Donald to realise the scale of the challenge facing him.

But he was quick to admit his reluctance at surrendering complete control of the club - although this is understood to have changed after Donald publicly placed the club up for sale in December.

“I don’t know how much money we’re going to need,” he says, during a discussion with trusted adviser Neil Fox.

“If the worst happens and we don’t go up, our wage bill is way too high for League One, and if we get promoted we’re going up with a wage bill that is £10million than any other team that has gone up.

“In my head, we need £10million more every year to have a go. I think we need a budget of £20million, spent well [if we get promoted].

“There have been some interesting, indicative offers come in for the club and when you sit and analyse that you think that we are sat on an asset here.

“The difficult challenge about getting £20million from an investor is what they’d want for it.

“It would feel like we’ve worked really hard to get this going again and then we’d watch them finish it.

“But we might not be able to financially finish it. We’re going to have to recognise that.

“You can get carried away with how good it feels.”

Donald, though, was quick to admit that he would need financial support.

Indeed, the Sunderland chief is shown accompanying Mark Campbell and a member of his group around the Academy of Light as they looked to strike a deal to purchase a majority stake in the club.

Ultimately, of course, these talks failed to reach a positive conclusion - with Donald saying that he was considering a ‘couple of options’ during the filming of the second season.

“It was pretty apparent even from owning the club for a couple of months that we would need to talk to people about how we fund the long-term plan,” he says.

“I’ve been doing that.

“I’ve got a couple of options, and of course the issue is that we want to raise quite a lot of funding - so they’ll want a big stake.

“And I don’t have a problem with the big stake, but losing control is not something I really want to do.

“I want to own enough of the football club to know that I can influence it and know that my voice can be heard.”

“We get an investor, or we have to sell,” he concluded.

Sunderland ‘Til I Die, produced by Fulwell 73, will return to Netflix on April 1.

The second series concentrates on Stewart Donald and Charlie Methven’s attempts to turn around the club’s off-field operations - while also targeting promotion to the Championship.