Phil SumblerThere was a little comment hidden away in Steve Cooper’s press comments this week about majority shareholder Steve Kaplan which clearly shows that, despite standing down as a director, he very much pulls the strings at Swansea City.
Kaplan stood down as being a director back in October shortly after the appointment of Jake Silverstein in what was believed by many to be a move towards new ownership with the latter taking a stake in the club at the same time through a loan.
Kaplan remained part of the ownership group and his departure coincided with some other director appointments – Chief Executive Julian Winter, Kaplan and Levien’s legal adviser Sam Porter and Finance Director Gareth Davies all joining the board of the club.
Documents said that Kaplan was no longer a “person of significant control” and back in an interview with Wales Online in February Levien made the following reference to Kaplan’s involvement “Steve raised his hand and said ‘Listen, I’ll be just as involved on the ownership level as your co-managing owner, as I was before, but it would be terrific to get a young, fresh perspective, someone who has experience at a different club in professional football on board and have them join the ownership group’.
“As I said, I think Steve is very involved with the ownership level, but at the board level, we decided that we wanted a different voice and a different perspective.”
Those in itself were interesting comments given Levien’s comments about only thinking Steve was involved at ownership level but voices from inside the Liberty say that he is very involved at team level with a regular stream of calls to Cooper taking place over the past two years which is a continuation to how they have been since acquiring the club back in 2016.
Kaplan has always been seen as the man that pulls the strings in the ownership group. From my involvement over the course of a few years it was always he who seemed to make the final decision and that is something that evidently probably hasn’t changed. To use his words we may have a fresh face in the boardroom but we don’t have fresh faces pulling the strings.
It was strongly rumoured to be the involvement of Kaplan and Levien that was getting on the wrong side of Trevor Birch when he was at the club, whether Winter is the same I have no idea but what is clear is that they like a front man in Swansea to take the flak for decisions that they make whilst remaining largely invisible.
“Steve Kaplan will be in contact” Cooper said when asked about his contact with the owners this week.
“Communications are only around the games, nothing else. Casual conversations.”
The ownership group have been largely invisible in Swansea since relegation from the Premier League three years ago. Of course Covid has made that more challenging in the last 13 months but prior to that they were (as we suggested on here earlier this season) the invisible men of Swansea City. But seemingly always on the end of a phone and always ready to offer a perspective on team matters direct to the man charged with making those decisions.
It was widely rumored in January that their involvement in the signings of both Jordan Morris and Paul Arriola were potentially against the wishes of Steve Cooper which, if true, are just spectacularly as unacceptable as it was when it was suggested that Huw Jenkins was meddling in team matters.
Neither signing worked out (Morris was unfortunate but it was clear from Day 1 that Arriola was not wanted here) which just adds to the fuel that meddling only causes problems. It started to be the downhill of our time in the Premier League and it feels as if lessons from the past are not learned.
The future of Steve Cooper will rest with his namesake Kaplan no matter what anyone tells anyone else. There may be a discussion, there may be a debate but ultimately it remains the same as it always was when he was gifted control at the expense of everything we worked for, Swansea City can change on the whim of one man.
And that will never be a good thing for us.
the owners have to go or nothing will alter!
Insightful and welcome analysis from somebody who has been far closer to the boardroom than the vast majority of SCFC supporters, like me (though I have been a Swans supporter for the past 60yrs).
For the few apologists of this American ownership at our club, take a good hard look at yourselves. Do you really believe that our club is in capable hands, with these distant dictators who on a whim (or more likely because of some financial interest) parachuted in unproven, unfit and injury prone American players, when what was needed was proven centre forward and a more creative and terrier like midfield. The impact of their dreadful decision-making likely to be that we miss out on promotion. Not very bright of you Mr Kaplan and Levine!
Do you really believe that Graham Potter felt he was supported by the owners when not long after being in post, they stepped into to veto his first key signing in the summer transfer window, righteously claiming that they carry out due diligence on every player – do you think that they really carried out the same level of due diligence with the two American players in January? We nearly lost Potter at that point for he went missing for a couple of days.
Do you really believe that with the trajectory pointing consistently downwards since Kaplan, Levine and Co were enticed to the club by Jenkins and Co, and with the value of player sales grossly outstripping the spend on new players (in the recent past £11m for Rodon balanced against 800k for Lowe); that our club is in the hands of owners who are putting the interests of the club before themselves?
Finally, Cooper is being made the scapegoat by fans for the failings of the owners. I bet they are content to allow this dissatisfaction against Cooper to ferment because it will deflect attention away from them. How on earth can Cooper keep the team fresh and inspired on the pitch when he knows that the owners will act with impunity regardless of what his needs and wishes are for the team. Yes he is struggling but the reasons stem far more from the owners performance. In fact they seem too just plain too dumb to work it out for themselves. And I cant say I that I am at all impressed by the performance of Winter so far – seems an owners lapdog when he should be battling on the manager’s behalf. Show some integrity Winter!
Yes I totally agree them who own the club are in the same mould as the Glaziers just in it to make money getting players in on the cheep with loans and if we had a striker who knows we could have been up there winning promotion but no Cardiff City got one no investment what so ever how can a manager work like that and that is much intersests them two have in our club in the amount of times they have come to the Liberty to watch our club and they would rather talk to winter than to our manager spinless yanks.
You missed the asset stripping from the list of conjectures.
If you would like to add that too, then wouldn’t disagree with you.
Yes just like the Glazers making money as much money as they can out of our club if the Swans did get promoted do you think for one moment that the club would see much of that money for investment in new players no way there is only one club they are interested in and that is DC Utd I only wish there was some one out there who would buy our club from these two and have the club of Swansea in they’re hearts and not for profit.we were a nice family club up untill that man called Huw Jenkins decieded to sell the club behind our backs just to make a quick buck or so now look at us you can never trust them yanks.