Swansea City announced their financial results for the 2012/2013 season last week showing everyone how financial sustainability should be done in football.
They announced a healthy profit of £15.3m for the year ending May 31, 2013 from a turnover of £67.1m/ They made £14.6m profit the previous year proving this is no one off event. For comparison West Ham had a turnover of £46.1m in the 2011/2012 Championship season, a wage bill of £34.9m and losses of £25.4m. In our last full year in the Premier league (2010/2011) we had a turnover of £80.5m, a wage bill of £48.6m and losses of £18.5m.
Swansea are re-investing the ,majority of their profits into the completion of a new £6m Youth Academy training facility near the Liberty Stadium, plus an initial £5m on a new training complex at nearby Fairwood.
Swansea finished 9th place last season just one place in front of West ham but also managed a Capital One Cup 5-0 victory at Wembley which provided entry into this season’s Europa League competition. With this season’s extra TV money together with the Europa league one expect their profit to soar even higher next season.
The wage bill for Swansea in the 2011/2012 season amounted to to just £35m putting them top of the table on the wages per point criteria. Each one of their 47 points in 2012 cost them £735,000 while Man City paid £2,267,000 per point to earn their 89 points.
Swansea are just one of two Premier League clubs with zero debt. The club has also submitted plans to enlarge the Liberty Stadium, eventually to 32,000, to cater to current demand. 15,000 members of Swansea City Supporters Society Ltd owns 20 per cent of the Premier League club
When Leon Britton first joined the club in December 2002 aged 20 on loan from West Ham, the Swansea supporters’ trust partly raised the money to pay his wages, rattling a bucket around the north bank on the old Vetch Field.
If there is a financial & fan ownership model to aspire to follow it has to be the Swansea model and they don’t play bad football either!