Keith Haynes returns to explain why Swansea's transfer policy will be the envy of chairmen worldwide
The departure of Wilfried Bony to Manchester City for an unbelievable £30million+ (with add ons) is enough to shock any football chairman into reality. Last week David Sullivan at West Ham decided to announce to the press that Bony could easily have been a West Ham player a few seasons back. To many that sounds like an admission of failure, but when examined closely it is basically a chairman highlighting that what Swansea are doing in football is nothing unusual.
He was saying 'I knew about Bony, I know my job '. It was Sullivan attempting to put down 'The Swansea Way', as he is of course a football genius adept at stunning football mediocrity - we all knew that. The vast majority of club chairmen will view the way Swansea do business with a degree of confusion. The vast majority of course are still following football rules from years gone by, enforced by aged boardrooms with aged old men confusingly scratching heir heads as to why their clubs cant score goals.
And this is the reason why Swansea are leaving in their wake a trail of football destruction.
We can go back many years at our club and examine all manner of transfers and players and see a pattern forming, especially over the past seven years or so. As we know the new board hardly spent any money at all in their formative years from 2002 until it was evident we had a sustainable business model. Then it seemed to appear to many that something special was happening at The Liberty. Those in charge of this plan clearly knew this already.
The satisfaction that came with still having a football club to support - after coming so close to losing it altogether - was enough for the majority of fans to flock to the ground once again. After the board's hard work through 2001 and 2002 there came the culmination that was THAT game against Hull in 2003, and in years since then The Swans have performed miracles in the transfer market time and time again.
So have the board been lucky once or twice or just fortunate three or four times? For me, having studied and referenced this stunning football journey I see a far clearer strategy in play. We now see transfer after transfer, move after move resulting in a conveyor belt of wise signings and many millions of pounds of profit. No wonder external parties are interested in the money pit available at Swansea.
Look at Jason Scotland, an all time Swansea goalscorer who shook the football league to its core with his prolific goalscoring record. Unrivalled in my opinion at that level, he scored 53 goals in just 90 starts for the Swans - in all it worked out to 53 goals in 102 appearances, or a goal every 1.92 games. His £25,000 transfer turned in to a million plus profit as did the free transfer of Lee Trundle from Wrexham. Scott Sinclair appeared for five hundred thousand pounds from Chelsea, and he too was quickly turned in to £7million pounds of profit two years later.
These are the obvious signings, and that's all without mentioning the revelation that was Michu, who slaughtered defences for over a season for a measly £2million investment. Swansea City are a one man team we often read, as these players performed week after week for The Swans.
There are of course many more examples. Several managers also made the club millions as they moved on to other clubs. It seems that everything that is touched by the board is automatic gold, yet still some stated it was luck.
Loan deals like those arranged for Jonathan de Guzman and Fabio Borini shored up the transfer policy at Swansea. Quality low budget signings in Chico Flores and more wiser investments in Pablo Hernandez certainly made people sit up and take notice. Michael Vorm was a three fold multi million profit turnover and Joe Allen was a youth team prospect sold for fifteen million. Further investment in Ki Sung Yueng will prove fruitful I am sure - even if he stays he will command huge respect and repay the club magnificently. Nathan Dyer was snapped up for less than four hundred thousand and Angel Rangel for a mere fifteen thousand pounds - these transfers really do force home the theory. In ninety percent of transfers Swansea City really do turn over a profit or create another success story.
Today's news may well be about the transfer of Bony to Manchester City, and indeed newer fans of the club not being able to accept it. But for me today is about all of this and even more. Today is about Modou Barrow, who has just signed a four year deal at Swansea. It makes him an excessively rich young man for sure, and as one even richer man leaves our club more richer men will step forward. Don't cry for these players, they wear our shirt and reap massive, if not obscene rewards for doing so. It is the market.
It is the way,
And as Bony heads north to bigger and better things (he hopes) just remember that even when his transfer fee is taken in to consideration each goal he has scored for Swansea in the premier league cost Manchester City £1.25 million pounds. Not bad business. Wilf has gone, but others will take his place - they did it when Alan Curtis left Swansea as they did when Roger Freestone went as well. And they will do it again now Bony has gone, and many more in the future.
Swansea City are a club, the name of a city living the high life, a Premier League brand. This club is not a person, not an ego. Just a club, our club and their club. Not Wilfried Bony nor Michu, neither Jimmy Gilligan nor Robbie James. A football club that explodes myths, pushes boundaries, and indeed forces egotistical chairman to make brazen comments in the worldwide press - and why?
Because when this brand makes millions whilst you sit on your hands - a chairman will feel threatened. It is out of their control, they cant explain it, and they cant reason with it. So they resort to type, and try to control it. Thing is Mr Sullivan et al, you don't know how to. Swansea City have the volume controls, and indeed the batteries for the remote.
Don't try and work it out. You'll fail. Just deal with it.
Keith Haynes is currently working on a new book with Phil Sumbler called 'Liberty Legends' please visit their facebook page and get involved.
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