Luton Town, who won last season's League One title, want to build a 23,000-capacity ground

Luton Town chief executive Gary Sweet says they cannot financially compete in the Championship "mad house" and wants a salary cap enforced in the division.

The Hatters are two points clear of the relegation zone following promotion to the second tier last season.

Championship sides ran up a record-high total of £307m in pre-tax losses in 2017-18, a 5 Live investigation found.

"We've got a situation where the rules say you're allowed to lose £39m over three years," Sweet told BBC Look East.

"So your starting point is, if you lose only £13m in one year, you've done well. You get a pat on the back. That's not our belief.

"That's not where we've come from. I'm grounded in a business school that says you've got to make a profit, or at least break even. We are not in a position where we can lose £13m per year.

"We haven't come in to it blindly. We've known all about the financial situation. But we were completely determined to do it our way and really not join in with the mad house.

"That's really the best way I can describe it. We don't have those people in the boardroom who can just throw dozens of millions or maybe hundreds of millions in to the pot over a few years to try and get to that next level."

In 2017-18, overall spending on player and staff wages across the Championship exceeded clubs' revenue by 11%, and that gap is expected to widen to an all-time high for 2018-19.

But Sweet would like to see that change with the introduction of a salary cap.

"What would I do? I would certainly bring in a salary cap. We run our own salary cap, it's self-policed," he added.

"We're still operating on the League Two and League One financial fair play rule, salary cost management, [whereby] we couldn't spend any more than 60% of our turnover on player salaries.

"I would bring in a cap on agents' fees. You perhaps could only get promoted, for example, if you [break even] and you're clean.

"So there are a couple of ideas for you. They probably won't be taken up."

Nevertheless, the Luton hierarchy believe they can survive in the division.

"There are more currencies in football than money," Sweet continued. "The first one being points on the board, but the second one being a lot of ethical and moral values that we hold.

"Those are some of the things that do tend to be compromised when you get individuals or companies or even countries come in to buy football clubs with the pure intent of ambition or ego.

"We feel that we want to climb as far as we possibly can without really changing the core culture of the football club that we've created.

"I think, when we speak to supporters, that's what they want too."