SWANS: ‘We have to be aspirational’: Gorringe wants a bigger Swansea.com Stadium one day

Swansea City would like to expand the 21,000-capacity Swansea.com Stadium one day, the club’s chief executive said this week.

He said: “We have to be aspirational and ambitious. Obviously we have to move one step at a time, but absolutely in the future we’d like to see that as an outcome, for sure.”

Owning the ground first

In July, Swansea Council’s cabinet agreed unanimously to sell the club the freehold, with the price kept in a closed session.

In October the club said the main terms were agreed and the deal was with the lawyers.

Tom Gorringe said: “We’ve got plans to continue to develop and improve the stadium.”

Fan zone and new screens

For now, that means new LED displays inside the bowl and a fan zone behind the South Stand.

The club’s planning application puts the fan zone at about 1,000 supporters, with a covered stage, a big screen and food and drink kiosks.

The club said in October that both big screens would be replaced during this international break, with extra LED advertising boards added inside the ground.

‘The hub of the best Welsh talent’

Gorringe says getting the academy back to Category One, the top grade the club gave up to cut costs, would be “really important strategically”.

Independent auditors have already been through the academy. The club has said it hopes to be back in the top grade for the 2027-28 season.

He said: “We want to be the hub of the best Welsh talent. We want to be providing the best possible pathways for children in this area to get to the first team.”

He added that Category One would also help the club “attract the best talent we can from outside of that”.

Gorringe points to Filip Lissah as the example. The academy graduate scored his first senior goal for his boyhood club against Blackburn last month.

He said: “We want that pipeline to be continuous. We want there to be a pool of players coming through that can affect the first team and do the club proud.”

Plans for the women’s team

Gorringe says there are “really ambitious plans” for Swansea City Women, which will “come out into the public domain in due course”.

In July the club sold a minority stake in the team and moved it into a new company, which Gorringe said “may be the most significant milestone in the club’s history”.

At the time, the club promised more detail on the investors and its longer-term vision.

Snoop Dogg and Modrić

Minority investor Snoop Dogg is planning another trip to Wales, after his first visit to the Swansea.com Stadium for the Preston game in February.

Gorringe said: “We’ve got a few things in the pipeline there.”

The club is also in regular contact with fellow investor Luka Modrić about finding a gap in his playing schedule for a first visit to Swansea.

‘Lots of metrics for success’

Promotion to the Premier League is still the aim, but Gorringe says the club measures success across the whole business.

He said: “There’s lots of areas where we’ve set out targets and things we want to improve. There’s lots of metrics for success and ultimately we want to be successful in all parts of the business.”

He added: “We’re winning games, playing a decent style of football at the same time and ultimately competing with teams with much bigger budgets than we’ve got.”