Liberty Stadium expansion would cost £15 milllion - Huw Jenkins

EXPANDING the Liberty Stadium to meet the clamber for Premier League tickets could cost Swansea City around £15m.

Chairman Huw Jenkins has confirmed increasing the capacity of the Liberty by around 10,000 seats would set the club back in the region of £15m, around a third of the original cost of the build.

Swansea have been looking into the possibility of making the Liberty bigger after selling out all 16,000 season tickets in record time for their debut campaign in the Premier League.

At just 20,500 the Swans have the second lowest capacity stadium in the Premier League and only 2,000 tickets are available on general sale for each game next season.

With the likes of Manchester United, Liverpool and Chelsea coming to South Wales supporters have been desperate to get their hands on tickets.

Jenkins said: “As supporters would expect we are looking at every option open to us and that includes expansion of the stadium.

“Everything of course depends on next season and being able to retain our status as a Premier League club.

“That is the first priority and if we can stay in the Premier League we will look at what we can do to push on.”

Swansea’s average home attendance was just over 15,000 last season but they have seen unprecedented demand for tickets since gaining promotion to the top flight.

Fans queued for up to 24 hours to get their hands on the final remaining season tickets in the wake of their play-off final win over Reading.

It is understood any expansion and building work Swansea wanted to do next summer would have to be signed off by January so it is unlikely the club will push ahead with any plans this season before survival is secured.

But if Brendan Rodgers can make Swansea a regular Premier League fixture the plans are becoming clearer about what it would take to improve the Liberty.

Jenkins added: “I must stress at the moment that we are just looking at the options.

“Before anything can be done there would have to be total agreement between all the partners in the Liberty Stadium, ourselves, the Ospreys and Swansea Council.”

With a huge demand expected for both general sale home tickets and away tickets next season, Swansea yesterday announced details of a new membership scheme for the forthcoming campaign.

Supporters can pay to join the ‘Jack Army Membership’ scheme, at £10 for season ticket holders, vice presidents and Premier Club members and £25 for non-season ticket holders, which will give them priority for games.

Every time a member applies for a ticket for a home or away game they receive loyalty points, with games being valued at one, three, five or eight points.

The loyalty scheme will come into force after a suitable amount of time in the season and the more points a supporter has, the more priority they get when trying to purchase tickets.

Swansea have also moved to avoid a repeat of the scenes which saw hundreds of people queuing outside the club’s ticket office at the end of the season for season tickets by making all future tickets exclusively online sales for the first three days of availability.

The scheme opens up at 10am on Monday and allows friends and family to link purchases so they can all buy tickets together.

Chairman Jenkins added: “This is obviously a big subject for supporters and something we have been looking hard at.

“We obviously want to supporters happy but because of the demand for tickets some people are unfortunately going to be disappointed.”

For the first time in the club’s history Swansea will also be offering supporters the chance to buy away season tickets.

A limited batch of 500 will be available at a cost of £900 for adults and £400 for under 16s but they will guarantee fans tickets for all 19 away fixtures in the Premier League.

Meanwhile, Jenkins will fly to the continent today as he looks to tie up a deal for another of Brendan Rodgers’ transfers targets.

The Swans are remaining tight-lipped about who Jenkins is meeting but they have been linked with Barcelona B striker Jonathan Soriano.

Jenkins said: “I will be meeting with the representative of a player that we feel will be perfect for Swansea City.

“He has the talent that would fit in to the style in which we believe in, and we are hopeful of him coming here.

“By flying out to meet his representative, I hope we can agree a deal within the next few days. We will talk about what we want to achieve as a club, and what the player wishes to achieve too.

“After the arrival of Danny Graham and the recent news regarding Steven Caulker – along with Angel Rangel committing his future to the club – this would add to the feel good factor around the club.

“We are determined to continue the good work put in over the last few years, and we will do it the way which is best for Swansea City.”

Jenkins also told a meeting of Swansea supporters in London on Thursday night that a move for Marcos Senna was still a possibility, despite Brendan Rodgers’ admitting it was likely to be “too rich” for Swansea.

Although it's more of a football story, I wonder how that would affect the Ospreys, having parts of the stadium shut down for large periods would be a bad thing.
Secondly I wonder what area they could expand, would they build a third tier on top or something?

I'd say the ospreys would be worried about this. surely if the stadium was expanded it would be too costly to have rugby matches there if they cant draw the crowds in

As I've said before, the Ospreys would be better off taking the show on the road for league fixtures. Playing at the Liberty for HC games

AlynDavies wrote:Although it's more of a football story, I wonder how that would affect the Ospreys, having parts of the stadium shut down for large periods would be a bad thing.
Secondly I wonder what area they could expand, would they build a third tier on top or something?

Or it will make the stadium seem fuller

I doubt they'll expand the Liberty. Not unless the Swans stay in the PL for a few years. Bradford expanded Valley parade after one season in the PL and were crippled with debt for years. Ospreys need to lower on the day prices to attract more support.



...and start playing better.

There is an excellent rugby stadium just down the road at Parc y Scarlets which would be ideal for the Ospreys!!!!!!!!

apparently you can build another level on the east stand, lets be honest the swans would need to stay up for 4 or 5 years before we would think of expanding the liberty

(that new stand down the vetch nearly bankrupted us last time we went up)

20,000 is fine for the swans, lets wait and see how we get on next year before we run up a huge bill doing up the ground

The Swans should ground share with Cardiff City for a year until the Swans go back down! The Blues could go back to CAP.

I'm not sure the cost is going to be that prohibitive. 15m is that much when you consider a year in the premier division is worth much more. Swansea havent signed that many players for the new season so they should have a nice little kitty.

For the Swans maybe having a smaller stadium in comparison to their rivals is a good thing for the next season or two. The likes of Man Unt, Chelsea etc won't be used to playing in smaller stadiums, it will be harder for their support to get tickets (and due to the distance less interest in tickets probably too), and a stadium full of jacks should be intimidating too.

Another thing I just realised is car parking can be a pain in the donkey at the Liberty so if they do expand the stadium there will be less car parking spaces again!

They need to get the trains to stop at the Liberty, at the moment they don't stop!

glamorganalun wrote:They need to get the trains to stop at the Liberty, at the moment they don't stop!

Train goes right by doesn't it? A small station there would help.

A halt looks possible behind the car park opposite the Liberty, the railway goes around the liberty! If you walk from the Liberty toward the shopping area you can see the railway line crossing the river!

It is better to fill out every game and have high demand for tickets than have many empty seats. Will Swansea stay in the Premier League? Probably not.

The biggest question for Ospreys is how do they fill up the stadium.

A Train station may help the Friday night games as the M4 is a mare coming from the east, the poor traffic control in Swansea does not help.

Good news for the Swans - not so great for the Ospreys I'm afraid. If they can't sell out for Heineken Cup games against Leicester or Magners playoffs against Munster - they would be left in the Edinburgh scenario playing in front of vast sections of empty seating (and its bad enough at CAP and I'm a Blues supporter)