Buying the Kassam Stadium remains a priority – but is not as critical to the long-term future of Oxford United as it was three years ago.

That is the opinion of U’s chairman Kelvin Thomas, speaking a year after owner Ian Lenagan said that acquiring the ground was an 18-month project.

Thomas says that the club have a decision to make in around six months time as to what happens next.

And that decision will be a huge one.

“Ian said that the purchase of the stadium was an 18-month time frame, and that was about a year ago,” Thomas said.

“But there has to be a commercially viable situation for us to do that.

“We are further along getting to that point, but there is a reality of the situation in that we don’t want to buy the stadium if it is not commercially viable.”

Thomas would not be drawn on figures, but it is understood that Firoz Kassam, who owns the stadium, was originally looking for £13m.

However, with more than ten years’ depreciation on the ground, it seems unlikely United would pay this amount.

Oxford United has made a profit for the last two years under Thomas’s leadership – one of only a handful of clubs in the Football League who have not lost money during that time.

But with many other clubs experiencing financial meltdown and almost going out of business after spending beyond their means, if that 18-month period elapses without any movement on the stadium front, would that be a disaster for United?

“No, not at all,” Thomas commented.

“The football club is sustainable going forward with or without the stadium and that is what we are trying to build here – in all aspects.

“We would like to get it (the stadium) so it is almost a bonus.

“Three years ago I felt we needed to get the stadium to survive, but we have developed that over the past two or three years.

“It is a priority to get the stadium, but we have to take a realistic view over the next six months and get to a point where either we do make the purchase, or make a decision where we say it is out of our reach.

“And that is a decision which will be based on commercial viability of the football club.”