THE Geelong Football Club will be debt-free for the first time in half a century next year after securing more than $10 million in donations from its wealthiest backers.

The extraordinary figure is a significant slice of the $13 million the Cats are hunting as part of their “Our Ambition” fundraising campaign to safeguard the club’s off-field health and on-field success for decades to come.

The donations will wipe the club’s $3.7 million debt from past redevelopments at Simonds Stadium, fund its $5 million stake for the current stage-four works and cover this year’s revenue losses from the missing Brownlow and Jennings stands.

media_camera Simonds Stadium’s stage four works will be funded by the donations. Picture: Jay Town

The money will also help establish the club’s new alternative complex at Deakin University, providing the Cats with some of the finest training facilities in the AFL.

Geelong chief executive Brian Cook on Sunday praised the donations, declaring the ambitious fundraising project would set up the club for the next 15 to 20 years.

“It’s the most exciting thing that I’ve got involved with and the biggest game-changer I’ve been involved with in my 17 years at the club, outside of the three premierships,” Cook told the Geelong Advertiser.

“I think it’s a great legacy for people at the footy club – the current board and executive team. It’s an outstanding achievement and it wouldn’t have been achieved without the generosity of so many great people.”

The fundraising will help the Cats cover the expected $1 million hit to their bottom line stemming from lost gaming, hospitality, seating and social club revenues this year.

media_camera Frank Costa and his brothers donated $3 million. Picture: Mitch Bear

Geelong also has no plans to bring back the 100 poker machines that have been displaced during the demolition of Club Clubs.

Of the $10.3 million already secured, $5 million was attracted from club sponsors, almost $1 million from past and current board members, $1 million from the Geelong Cats Foundation and a $500,000 bequest.

The Costa brothers – Robert, Anthony, Kevin and former long-serving president Frank – collectively stumped up a whopping $3 million, continuing their legendary mark on the club.

“When you grow up in Geelong and run a business in Geelong, you realise how important the Geelong Football Club is for the morale and heart of the city,” Frank Costa said yesterday.

“In Geelong, we’ve lost our manufacturing base, we’re in need of other things to keep pushing Geelong forward – there’s Deakin University, the hospital has been great, NDIS, Worksafe, TAC, all the new centres coming to town. They’ve helped, and the Geelong footy club is one of those.”

The club quietly sourced the significant financial commitments over the past eight months.

The Cats officially launched “Our Ambition” on Saturday night at a dinner in Melbourne’s Docklands precinct with some of the club’s deep-pocketed backers, who Cook calls “Friends of Geelong”.

Geelong will ask these fans – there are about 80 “very generous” families in this group - to contribute $2 million, before turning to its record membership base for the final $1 million.

“At the end of the day, we’ll be debt free for the first time in about 50 years and we won’t owe one cent in a newly completed stadium,” Cook said.

Cook said about $9 million of the eventual $13 million in pledges would be available to the club within 12 months, putting the Cats on a path to be debt free by July 2017. The other financial commitments will roll in over the coming five years.