The Swans have shopped local for their new shirt sponsors, finally shaking the tag of online gambling companies by extending their partnership with Swansea University who will now see their name and logo across all the Swans shirts as a result.

It has long been a criticism of the club that shirt sponsorship was provided by gambling sites – often unheard of before the link up with the Swans – which also meant that junior shirts would largely be blank and therefore not the same shirt that the players would be wearing.

Whilst it is key that the club should look to maximise all sponsorship opportunities there was always a balance to be struck between the best sponsorship deal against the maximum possible number of shirt sales.   A link up with a vastly expanded and award winning local University makes sense and not only benefits both the Swans and the University but helps spread the name of both of the partners wider than before.

From the University point of view they get the additional exposure that a Championship Club can bring whilst for the students in the City it can help form an affiliation with the club that may not have existed without the partnership link up.

The exact amount of the partnership deal has not been reported but with the University links already around stand and training sponsorship together with our Fairwood training ground this feels a much better deal all round for the club and enhances our links with the City as opposed to several years where it feels like we have come away from them.

The announcement on the club’s new kit for the 20/21 season is expected later in the week with the club’s official Twitter continually reporting on the journey from abroad!

By Phil Sumbler

Been watching the Swans since the very late 1970s and running the Planet Swans website (in all its current and previous guises since the summer of 2001 As it stood JackArmy.net was right at the forefront of some of the activity against Tony Petty back in 2001, breaking many of the stories of the day as fans stood against the actions where the local media failed. Was involved with the Swans Supporters Trust from 2005, for the large part as Chairman before standing down in the summer of 2020.