Planet Swans ArchivesThe Swans have already seen Andy Robinson leave the club this summer for a better pay deal elsewhere and that seems to have turned the head of Ferrie Bodde as well who is stamping his feet and demanding a move to Derby County.
But that has not swayed the Swans from their belief that they have to stick to their structure that is already in place. The Swans will find themselves one of the lowest payers in the Championship next season with reports of Robinson being offered £6k per week to stay were always accompanied with the phrase "one of the best deals in the club's history"
And it certainly appears that the lessons of the past have been learned with Jenkins warning that the club are not prepared to take a gamble with huge wages and risk their future into the bargain.
Speaking in today's News of the World, the Chairman said "We have a structure in place and no player is worth putting the club's future into jeopardy. Many of the teams in the Championship are running up millions of pounds worth of debt – not a path we want to follow.
"Once you start paying over-the-odds wages that you can't afford then that's the start of deep trouble. It's hard to stop spending money you haven't got once that starts.
"I'm sure our fans wouldn't want us to go £30million or so into debt just to keep the players happy and here at the club.
"You can pay someone huge wages for them to perform and then they go break a leg in the first match. It's a big gamble we are just not willing to take.
"We are not naive enough to think that moving up a division you don't have to raise the bar to keep and sign new players but when it comes to offering silly wages we won't cave in."
Jenkins words were echoed by Swans manager Roberto Martinez who said "We won’t do it in a dangerous way.
“We will be competing against bigger clubs with bigger budgets but we will deal with it.
“We have made tremendous progress over the last 11 months and I would expect us to keep improving at the same rate over the next eleven.”
There are plenty of examples around the league of clubs who have suffered financial problems – we are one of them – but it does seem that the Swans have learned from the mistakes of the past and are determined not to repeat them again.
And rightly so.
