Brett Cravatt and Jason Cohen

Dear Jack Army,

We hope you are all doing well and are looking forward to the start of the new season at Middlesbrough on Saturday, after a strong end to the last campaign.

We thought this would be a good time to once again update you on events at the club, as there has been plenty going on as we work towards the 2025-26 Championship season.

The obvious place for us to start is with the news that Snoop Dogg has joined Luka Modric as a high-profile investor and co-owner of Swansea City. We are tremendously excited to have added Snoop to our ownership team, an excitement that he shares having been a football fan for a number of years. The global reach and coverage of the respective involvements of Luka and Snoop illustrates what they can bring to Swansea City.

We want as many people as possible to know about our club and its story. The presence of two global icons can help us achieve that objective and grow our commercial profile in a manner that will enable us to commit greater resources to putting the best possible team out on the field.

But, we also wanted to be sure that the people who join us do so because there is something about Swansea that resonates with them. Luka and Snoop have that. For Luka, it was the memory of competing against a side with an eye-catching, clearly identifiable style of play. For Snoop, it was the city and club’s reputation as an underdog that overcomes obstacles to punch above its weight.

They are committed to helping Swansea City wherever they can, and I know Luka has readily spoken to players – such as Zeidane Inoussa – in order to try and help convince them that our club is the right place for them.

There remains plenty of important and effective work for us all to do to reach our goal of being a competitive proposition week in week out in the Championship. We are playing in one of the toughest divisions in football, there are no gimmes, no-one has a right to win, so we need everyone together and pushing to make sure we keep the wonderful feeling of positivity around the club, and continue heading in the right direction to make sure that, as Snoop said, we are an underdog with bite.

That positivity and hard work were certainly on display when we visited training camp at La Finca Resort in Spain.

We are grateful for the warm welcome we received from staff, players and partners alike, and we could not help but be thoroughly impressed by the calibre and intensity of the work being put in on the training ground by head coach Alan Sheehan, his staff, and the squad, in searing heat day in and out.

We have enjoyed a strong working relationship with Alan for some time now, and he has always impressed us as a person and with the dedication he has shown to his work. Twice he has stepped in to take the reins and lead the team in challenging circumstances, and we were delighted with the progress we made under his leadership as we took 17 points from our final eight games of last season.

Alan has demonstrated all the attributes we would want to see in our head coach moving forward, he is true to himself, has a clear vision for what he wants to accomplish and is desperate to do well for this club and its fans. We are excited to see how we perform under his stewardship. In order for us to help Alan and the team compete at the level we would like, we know it is important to make positive strides in our recruitment operation.

It has been pleasing to see us bring a number of players in during the early stages of the summer window, and allow those additions to have a full pre-season to work with the staff and their new teammates before the action gets under way.

We have already welcomed Zeidane Inoussa, Bobby Wales, Ricardo Santos, Cameron Burgess and Ethan Galbraith, while Melker Widell is also readying himself for a first season in Swansea colours. We also added highly-rated defender Kaelan Casey on loan from West Ham United earlier this week.

We are fully aware that there is still plenty of work to do and, ultimately, a full picture on how we have fared will only become apparent once the window has closed. It’s also fair to say that recruitment will always be an ongoing work in progress, owing to the very nature of football. But it has been positive to see us act decisively as we collectively built towards the new campaign.

Off the pitch, we are continuing to make structural changes to try and put us in the best-possible position. One of these is the merging of our ticketing and retail teams, which we hope will allow us to operate more efficiently and provide a better service for you, our supporters. Tickets are now available to purchase via the shop, and we have extended the club shop’s opening hours to ensure you have more time to buy merchandise and tickets in person.

We are also reviewing further improvements we can make to the physical store, our online shop and the range of products we have available following the feedback you provided in our recent supporter survey. Further information on that survey and its results can be found HERE.

On the subject of ticketing, we have been encouraged to see season ticket sales for next season in a strong place. We already have a greater number of season ticket holders than we did last term, and we thank you sincerely for your support. The energy within the stadium over our final run of home games was incredible, and we would love nothing more than to sell-out every fixture next year and have your vociferous backing be the 12th player to help roar the team on to a successful campaign.

Work is also continuing to ready 'The Swansea Jack' - our official Swansea City sports bar - for opening in the coming weeks.

We had initially planned to have this new venue - which we are opening in partnership with Football Taverns Limited - in time for the start of the new season.

That has not been possible due to some factors beyond our control, but work on making 'The Swansea Jack' into a destination where supporters can come together to celebrate our club, and its rich heritage and history is ongoing. Further updates regarding an opening date will be provided in due course.

Another area of focus heading into 2025-26 is the academy. For a club like Swansea City, the academy will always have a crucial role to play, and we are delighted to see Ryan Davies – a man who is Swansea through and through and boasts a wide-ranging knowledge of player development – return to the club as academy manager.

Since returning to Category Two status in 2021, our operating expenses for the academy have increased by 55 per cent. We have conducted a review of the current operations and assessed the output via player sales and first-team minutes over the last 10 year-period. Following this review, we will be looking to align our recruitment strategy for the professional development phase, and that work will now be part of the mandate for our senior first-team recruitment team.

In addition, we will now be focusing on the structure of the academy to ensure we are operating efficiently and maximizing its output going forward. One of the initial steps in this process is the movement of the under-18s team from Landore to Fairwood, which we hope will allow for greater integration and alignment between all our professional teams. Work to integrate these changes has taken place over the summer at Fairwood allowing us to better utilize the space available there.

When making these changes we will be seeking to implement a model with a greater budget for the recruitment of young talents, so the next Dan James can be identified and brought into our system.

The aim of these decisions is to try and improve the future prospects of all academy players. We are aspirational for our academy and would like to see the club return to Category One level. With that in mind, we have tasked the team on the ground to review the current operations and costs to those required at Category One level so we can work towards trying to regain that status again in the future.

The assessment criteria for this is thorough so there isn’t a quick fix, but we will do all we can to work towards this next step. We and the senior management at the club will keep you informed of any developments as and when they happen or come into effect.

Similar to the congratulations we offered to Alan Sheehan, we also want to wish Yzzy Taylor every success as she leads our senior Women’s team forward. Like Alan, Yzzy oversaw a strong end to a challenging season and she has fully earned the opportunity to take the team forward.

It’s an exciting time for Women’s football with the Welsh national team having just made history by competing at the European Championship finals in Switzerland, while as a club we were proud to receive a national academy licence that will strengthen our player pathway for girls in south-west Wales.

As we mentioned earlier, the atmosphere at our final home games was outstanding. The Hull game was our junior takeover fixture, which provided some great experiences for young Jacks. We would like to take this opportunity to thank all of the team who worked on this initiative and everyone at the club who continues to work every day to make us better. We will be looking to do more events like this moving forward.

Looking ahead to next season, we are fully committed to doing what we need to do to drive our club forward. We are excited for what is ahead, and we look forward to going on this journey together with you.

Thanks again for all your support,

Jason and Brett

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