Wales: Swansea City want to buy Liberty Stadium

source: BBC.co.uk; author: michał

Wales: Swansea City want to buy Liberty Stadium City council confirmed talks are already ongoing with Swansea City on the sale of Liberty Stadium to the club. City FC want to expand, while the city of Swansea need to cut spending by 81 millions.

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Swansea City had already confirmed their will to take over at Liberty Stadium, which currently belongs to the city of Swansea. Now similar confirmation came from the city council. Council leader Rob Stewart said: "Positive, exploratory discussions with the Swans have now started about selling the Liberty Stadium to them."

Should City buy the ground, they would be able to completely control its daily operations and therefore maximize revenue. This in turn would make long-anticipated expansion more viable. In 2013 the club was granted planning permission to expand towards the size of 33,000 seats and the permission remains in force for 5 years.

Liberty StadiumPhoto: Alexander Ridler (cc: by-nc-nd)

Potential sale of the stadium is good news for taxpayers as Swansea councilors will be looking for £81 million in budget cuts over the next three years. Extra resources and transferring the stadium to a private entity should come in handy.

One company possibly threatened by such a move would be the rugby side Ospreys. Currently the Ospreys play similar role as City FC, being one of two major tenants at the stadium. While the city assures rugby players would still be able to hold games at Liberty Stadium, their role would fall compared to City.

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