Swansea City hold all the cards as club get serious with prized assets The club appears to have learned lessons from the previous ownership Comments Sport Tom Coleman Sports Writer 11:27, 22 Apr 2026 View Image Zan Vipotnik (right) and Ethan Galbraith are two of Swansea's prized assets right now (Image: Getty Images) There's two ways of looking at it. On the one hand, news of Ethan Galbraith's decision to turn down an initial offer of a new contract feels like an early setback for Swansea City ahead of what could be an important summer. On the other, the fact we're even having this conversation at such an early stage is a striking sign of progress. After all, Galbraith, who's emerged as one of Swansea's brightest performers, is effectively already contracted to the club until 2029. The Swansea of old might well have concluded that negotiating an improved deal was unnecessary, and might well have eventually run the risk of making a mistake seen many times before in these parts. The most recent example is probably defender Harry Darling, who left for nothing last summer despite being one of the club's most important first-team players. J OIN US ON FACEBOOK! Follow Wales Online’s Swansea City FB page for more news and analysis The summer before, Joel Piroe was sold for just over £10m, a fee that might well have been enhanced had he not been in the final year of his contract with the Swans. Nathan Wood, Ryan Manning and Joel Latibeaudiere are just a few other examples of assets who were either sold cheaply or allowed to leave for nothing in recent years. There's obviously been a change of ownership since then, and events over the last few weeks suggest they may well have taken note of some of the mis-steps of the past. Errors that might well have cost the club millions in player sales. Indeed, while the ownership has changed, the financial challenges have remained relative constant. The club posted a record loss of £21.6m in their latest accounts , which only further underlined City's financial dependence on their owners. Player trading is seen as one of the ways to ease the burden on the ownership, and there's a growing feeling both Galbraith and Zan Vipotnik are potential high-value assets. The same could probably be said for Josh Tymon, who also recently committed his long-term future to the club with an improved new deal. The club slapped a £15m price tag on Vipotnik in January, but having tied him down to an improved contract to keep him on board until 2030, and with a potential golden boot now in his grasp, his value has likely climbed well beyond that. Should another club come calling, they'd have to bring some serious money to the table, as Swansea's position couldn't really be stronger. That's assuming they sell at all, of course. The same is already true, to an extent, with Galbraith. However, Swansea's initial offer of an improved deal, well below some of the club's top earners, is understood to have gone down badly with his camp. Further talks are likely over the coming weeks, so there's potentially plenty of road to run and lines of communication appear to still be open. But with there being two years and the possibility of another 12 months on his current contract, there's no immediate pressure on the club to get something over the line. It's important relationships don't sour, of course, and if another club decides to test Swansea's resolve with an offer it may well muddy the waters a little. But the club are arguably already well placed to demand a decent windfall should the possibility of a transfer start to fortify over the coming weeks. This latest attempt to further strengthen their position may ultimately fall flat, but Swansea's hierarchy deserve some credit for at least giving it a go. -- Article continues below *Follow all of our social channels to ensure you stay up to date with the latest Swans news. Sign up to our daily newsletter here and our WhatsApp channel here . Our Swansea City correspondent Tom Coleman is also on social media. He can be found on his X account here , on Instagram , on TikTok and on Facebook .
Curated by Taleb Kabbara · Source: www.walesonline.co.uk