Planet Swans ArchivesThe Swans have long since talked about the necessity to expand the Liberty Stadium which is amongst the smallest in the Premier League. With just 21,000 seats it is a sell out most weeks and has been since we entered this division five years ago.
There is a brand new generation of Swans fans out there that cannot get tickets for games and it is essential for me that we take the opportunity that we have been given at this level to ensure that we get them into the club on a frequent basis.
Additional seats would do that for us and also allow the club for some fixtures to go back to the days when we did promotions for kids to come into the games as well as a review of the ticket prices to see if there is any possibility of a reduction.
The plans to take the stadium capacity to 27,0000 seats is the right one and one that would hugely benefit the club. Not just from the extra gate revenue but extra commercial sales in the shop from the extra people coming in.
There is of course the potential as well to purchase the stadium. It has long since been suggested that the Council would be open to sell and a deal could well be struck between them and the football club to let the ownership transfer to us.
Owning the stadium will not take away the need to expand so it will considerably increase the cost of the projects that the Chairman was referring to. A total cost of £50m was banded around at the forum and that he insisted could not come at the expense of the playing budget nor raised through the sale of players.
Buying the stadium without expansion just seems slightly pointless to me I have to say as it will not bring in any new fans to the club which is the most important thing in my view.
So it would mean the club borrowing which could change the views of many in terms of what is most important. The club has always taken pride in the fact that it is not heavily in debt like so many and changing that would put a different perspective on things.
That said, if expansion or ownership is essential what choice do we have short of looking for investors in return of a new issue of shares which again could change the landscape of the club completely.
Either way it is an interesting debate and one that I suspect will have different views in a lot of places but what do you think? Vote in our site poll below
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