Swansea City FC

[Katk]

8.5 miljonit ja no option to buy. Päris krõbe diil ühe hooaja jaoks. Aga eks neil mingit säravat isksust oli vaja peale Gylfi lahkumist ja eriti veel kui Llorente on Chelseasse/Tottenhami liikumas.

[Devil]

8.5 miljonit ja no option to buy. Päris krõbe diil ühe hooaja jaoks. Aga eks neil mingit säravat isksust oli vaja peale Gylfi lahkumist ja eriti veel kui Llorente on Chelseasse/Tottenhami liikumas.

Bayern otsis lolli, kes oleks nõus ilma optionita laenama. Sanches vaatas, et mingi suvaka islandalase kohta suudan ma küll täita. Swanseal oli lihtsalt liiga palju raha ja Ancelotti eks-parem käsi Clement.

[gizmoduck]

Bony peaks ka tagasiteel olema. Oleks lahe kui too oma jalad jälle üles leiak nüüd.

[mcnamara]

Härra Sanches pole Swansea eest veel minutitki mänginud, ometi on Inglise ajakirjanike arvates jumal taevast maa peale toodud ja otsejoones Walesi asetatud.

[Redman]

Kiljontiin on oma töö teinud ning Swansea klubi on peatreenerita. Miks sa Vincent lootsid, et mees hoitakse ja antakse veel aega?! Kõige õigustatum king see hooaeg seni.

[vincent]

minu arust on seal häda rohkem materjalis.

ja ennekõike ma lihtsalt ei taha näha, et see kuradi nokkloom jälle löögile saab.

[mcnamara]

Kolmas dekaaber järjepanu kolmas vallandet päälik. The Swansea Way.

[JuriM]

minu arust on seal häda rohkem materjalis.

ja ennekõike ma lihtsalt ei taha näha, et see kuradi nokkloom jälle löögile saab.

Jep.. Kui sa ikka kõik oma parimad pojad maha müüd ja kedagi asemele ei osta ja vaid tood laenule paar noorukit.. Good riddance, kui nad nüüd järsku ümbersündi ei tee.

[Epic]

Carlos Carvalhal meisterdas paar aastat tagasi tugeva Arsenali vastu suure üllatuse. Pärast seda jäid asjad Sheffieldis veidi vinduma, aga vähemalt oskas Wednesdayst õigel ajal kinga saada. Nüüd esialgu hooaja lõpuni Premier League'is Swansea boss.

[ElNino9]

Carlos Carvalhal meisterdas paar aastat tagasi tugeva Arsenali vastu suure üllatuse. Pärast seda jäid asjad Sheffieldis veidi vinduma, aga vähemalt oskas Wednesdayst õigel ajal kinga saada. Nüüd esialgu hooaja lõpuni Premier League'is Swansea boss.

Ei tundu just suurima pingutusena liigasse püsimajäämiseks..

[Wingback]

Päris oluline võit täna, annab hooaja teise poole rel-võitlusele uue hingamise sisse kindlasti.

[Epic]

Carvalhal on oma Twitteri tegevusega fännide südamed juba võitnud.

[Wingback]

Nii jätkates jäädakse veel püsimagi. Peatreenerile peab plusspunkte jagama küll. Manager of the month?

Since his arrival on Dec. 28, Swansea have lost just one game and are still in the FA Cup.

[Mask]

Vennad on taas ühes klubis kokku saanud. Sümpaatne!

[orbitaaljaam]

Don’t come within five feet of me during a match,” Swansea City’s co-owner Steve Kaplan warns me. “And if we lose, which unfortunately has occurred so far this season quite a bit, it ruins my entire weekend. I’m not a pleasant person to be around.”Long-suffering football fans will relate. But a few years ago, the softly spoken American, 59, barely watched the game, let alone allowed his mood to be dictated by it. Baseball was Kaplan’s childhood passion. His desire to play at college was cut short when he injured a shoulder by running into another player with enough force to leave the opponent unconscious. Instead, he went into business, founded a private equity firm and amassed a multimillion dollar fortune.Kaplan never lost the sporting bug though and, in 2012, bought a stake in the Memphis Grizzlies, an NBA basketball team. It was from this vantage point that he first observed the global popularity of a rival sport — football and, in particular, the English Premier League.Thousands of fans pack out stadiums in Britain but millions more around the world follow the sport on television. These TV viewers power the league’s mind-blowing wealth; its 20 teams each take a share of an estimated £8bn in current broadcasting rights.“My theory was that . . . the most valuable sports content in the world [is] sitting in the United Kingdom,” says Kaplan.His hunt to acquire a Premier League club led him to Swansea, a working-class port city of 250,000 people in the South Wales valleys. In June 2016, Kaplan and Jason Levien, 45, general manager of the US Major League Soccer team DC United, led a consortium of American investors who bought a controlling stake in Swansea City. The deal was reportedly worth more than £100m. Kaplan is “by a country mile, the biggest investor”, says a person close to the consortium.Swansea owners Jason Levien (left) and Steve Kaplan © Sebastián BrunoOn the night we meet, he is in London for a meeting of Premier League club owners — a group of billionaires and industrialists, oligarchs and sheikhs, playboys and socialites. Kaplan is only the fifth American to become a principal owner of these teams, joining those from Russia, China, United Arab Emirates, Italy, Iran, Thailand — and a handful from England.Kaplan won’t reveal his endgame, but people close to him say the goal is to double or even triple his investment by building the club’s business, and to sell it at a later stage. He does say that “if we did nothing but stay in the Premier League and didn’t do any of the other pieces [to boost the club commercially], the value of Swansea City would go up because the worldwide rights to Premier League football, which is split equally among the 20 teams, is going to grow at a very substantial compound growth rate over the next 20 years.”Kaplan, however, has much bigger ambitions for Swansea. He wants to get global sponsors, expand the stadium, upgrade training facilities, sign top international players and attract fans worldwide. This is why over the course of the season, he, along with shareholders, directors, executives and coaches at Swansea, agreed to speak to the FT about their hopes and plans. They gave me unprecedented insight into the modern running of a Premier League club — how rich Americans, the latest big-money foreigners to buy entry into the Premier League, are trying to turn a small-town club into a global operation.Yet, in November, after 11 games of the season, there is a hitch. The team have won just two matches. Tensions are building. Some supporters are in open revolt, screaming “we want our club back” during matches. Kaplan’s investment, borne out of rational thinking, has failed to take account of football’s capricious nature; that the best-laid plans of middle-aged men depend on the feet of the young athletes. Each season, the three teams finishing bottom of the Premier League are demoted to the Championship. The consultancy Deloitte estimates that relegation results in a financial hit of up to £95m. “The stakes are so high in the Premier League,” say Kaplan. “It’s perceived by the owners, it’s perceived by the management, it’s perceived by the players, the fans, the support staff. For everybody, they just feel how much is riding on every match.”And each match is changing Kaplan. “I want to be careful about how I say this. Whether Swansea goes up 10 times in value or goes to zero [is] not going to affect my family or me, [it is] not going to have a material impact on my net worth . . . What I didn’t fully appreciate is how emotionally invested I would be in the team . . . I think it has to do with the fact that it’s so hard to score a goal. The goals are so few and far between that, when you do score, it’s such an incredible emotional release. You can see [it] with [the] players. They score a goal and they’re jumping. They’re sliding on the grass.”Goals have been the problem for Swansea. They managed just seven in their first 11 league games and no other team had attempted fewer shots. This was predictable. In the summer, having finished 15th last season, the team sold its two biggest attacking stars: Icelandic midfielder Gylfi Sigurdsson and Spanish striker Fernando Llorente. Though replacements were hired, manager Paul Clement pushed for more players. But the owners refused to break the bank. In the summer, Swansea were one of the few top-flight clubs to make a net profit in transfer sales.This has raised the hackles of fans, who argue a refusal to spend big will doom the team. But Kaplan says: “The best plan is to be sustainable, so that, hopefully, in many, many years — we’re owners here but everybody has a finite lifespan — when we’re no longer here, we’ve got a team that’s sustainable. If it can generate revenue through its commercial operations, that allows it to stay in the Premier League [and] not [be] dependent on some super-wealthy person pouring money into it. I think that’s more of a hope than a plan. A hope’s not a plan.”The day after we meet, Kaplan travels to watch Swansea play at Burnley, a team with even fewer financial resources. Swansea lose 2-0. One of the goals is scored by Jack Cork, a player the Swans sold in the summer, considered surplus to requirements. Later that night, when highlights of the game are shown on the BBC’s Match of the Day, the camera briefly settles on Kaplan in the crowd. “One of Swansea’s American owners, Steve Kaplan, is watching the game,” says the commentator. “He’s over for what Paul Clement describes as a scheduled visit and there is nothing sinister in his presence.”

https://www.ft.com/content/d28b725e-3796-11e8-8eee-e06bde01c544