This week Swansea City fans have once again aired their frustrations and anger towards the club’s American owners, through a petition calling for them to resign, which currently has over 2,600 signatures. We’re angry that our own supporters’ trust have agreed not to take the previous owners to court over the disastrous 2016 sale. This is about the future of our club and fan ownership in sport.
Image: Swansea City owners, Steve Kaplan (left) and Jason Levien (right) are extremely unpopular with Swansea City Fans.
“We will be relentless in our determination to continually improve this club – and we have the financial resources to do so. We will be competitive and we will outwork our opponents on the pitch and in the boardroom”
Those were the words of the Swansea City A.F.C owners during their takeover of the club in summer 2016, which saw Steve Kaplan and Jason Levien lead an American consortium to purchase 68% of our club, with the Swansea Supporters Trust retaining their 21.1% stake.
The reality, however, has been much different. The period of their ownership has seen Swansea make a net profit of £66 million on transfers, with much of the rare investment during the Premier League times being spent on overpriced players, such as Sam Clucas, Roque Mesa and Borja Baston to name a few.
Consequently, the owners’ stated plan to ‘outwork’ the opponents, both in the boardroom and as a result on the pitch, has failed miserably, as seen with relegation to the Championship in the 17/18 season, ending Swansea’s seven years of Premier League football.
Following relegation, the Swans have obviously needed to balance the books regarding finances, especially in terms of the players on high Premier League wages. However, this has come at a major cost as key players every season have been constantly sold for significantly reduced prices, just look at Conner Roberts sold at just £2.5 million.
Such little backing saw head coach Steve Cooper depart in the summer, before joining Nottingham Forest where he has since sent the Reds shooting up the table, from rock bottom in September, now to one place off a playoff spot.
His differing outcomes in terms of success at both Swansea and Forest just shows how pivotal backing from the board with reasonable investment is, and how big of an impact it has on performances.
But things came to a head this week when news broke out that an agreement had been reached between the former shareholders of Swansea City and the board of directors of the Swansea City Supporter’s Trust. This agreement meant that no legal action would be taken over the sale of the club in 2016, where at the time the supporters’ trust was excluded from crucial negotiations. This has been an ongoing case fuelled by fans rightfully feeling angry at having been excluded from the running of their club.
Instead of taking action over the 2016 sale, the trust will now receive a £500,000 settlement, gain protection for 5% of their shares to future dilution and will also receive another £1.5 million IF the club ever secures future promotion to the Premier League. But there are many uncertainties over the specific details of the agreement, including where the money is coming from.
But in fact, we the supporters, many of whom are members of the trust, were once again left in the dark over the agreement. This is despite the fact that back in 2019 trust members voted 81.8% in favour of legal action.
This level of disregard for the supporters’ views signals an end to fan representation at the club. Even the Trust, which is supposed to be the supporter’s core representation at the club, don’t truly present our full feelings to those running the club anymore.
This has become all too common in the general football world, where fans have lost nearly every say they used to have over proceedings of their beloved football club. Instead we see super-rich owners running everything for profit, only to cut and run when it suits them. In response to this situation, last year saw unprecedented fan anger with loud protests outside the grounds of premier league clubs over the European Super League. In the end, fan anger got the plan scrapped.
With so much controversy going on behind the scenes at Swansea City, the person to be backing at the moment is current head coach Russell Martin. Russell and the team undoubtedly deserve a lot of praise for the performances and results they have already achieved this season, as well as the way Martin is managing the squad given how thin it is.
Who knows what is next in store for Swansea, but it is very unlikely the anger towards the owners from the fans will die down anytime soon. Will Russell Martin be the next manager to leave Swansea, following in the footsteps of Potter and Cooper over the lack of backing from the board? I would say unfortunately it is highly likely, but I wouldn’t blame him.
As fans, we need to take back control of our club and secure its future. Sign the petition here.
