SWANS: Fans to vote on changing the club badge

Swansea City fans are to be given a vote on changing the club badge.

The club wants its primary crest to show only the Swan, dropping the “Swansea City AFC” lettering that currently sits beneath it, and season ticket holders and Jack Army members will all have a say.

The move follows questions from supporters about how the badge appears on the new home kit, where the crest sits inside a printed circle rather than being applied directly to the shirt.

Chief executive Tom Gorringe explained why in a letter to fans. Under the rules, the home kit must carry the club’s primary badge, and the lettering in the current version is too small to print onto the shirt, so the whole crest has to go on as a circular patch.

“The club’s preference would be to amend the primary badge to only display the Swan, while keeping the text under the secondary badge,” he said.

That change, he said, would let the Swan appear larger on playing shirts and open up more application types, offering “more versatility in design” and “a more premium finish to the kits”.

If approved, the circular patch would not be needed in future seasons.

A club cannot simply swap its crest any more. Gorringe said the consultation was being run in line with the best practice set out by the new Independent Football Regulator and the Football Association’s Heritage Rules, which govern changes to a club’s badge and colours.

The consultation has already started, with the aim of making the change in time for next season.

The Swans have history here. The crest has changed repeatedly over the past two decades, with retro versions marking the 40th anniversary of the 1981 promotion in 2021 and a recolour the year after, before the club returned to the familiar 1998 Swan in 2023.

This time the question is narrower: not a new design, but whether the Swan needs its name written underneath.

The badge vote was one of several announcements in Gorringe’s letter, sent ahead of the club’s fans’ forum and this weekend’s cup tie against Birmingham.

Among them: the club wants to buy its Fairwood training ground outright from Swansea University, which owns the site the Swans currently lease.

Gorringe said discussions over the purchase were “progressing well”, though there was still work to do before the club could say more.

It would be the club’s second major property move of the summer, after Swansea Council’s cabinet agreed to sell the club the Swansea.com Stadium in July, with the price kept confidential while negotiations conclude.

The club has also formally submitted its bid to return the academy to Category One status, the top tier of English football’s academy system.

The academy will be audited over the coming season, and if successful would return to Category One from the start of the 2027-28 season, with requirements to meet on staffing levels in certain areas.

Gorringe pointed to the pathway’s output in pre-season, with ten of the eleven players on the pitch at the end of the Bochum friendly having come through the club’s academy.

“We want an academy that attracts the best players from Swansea whilst also being a hub for the best Welsh talent,” he said.

The letter also confirmed early figures from the club’s accounts, with Gorringe saying revenues had grown more than 25% over the financial year just ended, while non-football spending was kept under control. The accounts are still being audited.