Swansea marks return to top flight with victory parade

Crowds of football supporters are gathering in Swansea to celebrate the club’s promotion to the Premier League – a move that comes with an expected £90 million windfall.

The victorious Swansea team is due to parade through the South Wales city on an open-top bus later on Tuesday, giving fans the chance to toast the high point of a decade-long comeback.

Having struggled on the verge of bankruptcy, the club only avoided relegation from the Football League on the final day of the 2002/03 season.

Promotions came in 2005 and 2008, before Scott Sinclair fired the Swans back into the top flight for the first time since 1983.

Sinclair, who spent five years at Chelsea but failed to make it as a first-choice winger, scored three goals in Swansea’s 4-2 victory over Reading on Monday.

The goals saw Sinclair take his tally for the season to 27, and he became only the second player in history to score a hat-trick in a Wembley play-off final after Clive Mendonca in 1998.

The 22-year-old said: “It’s good to get a hat-trick but the main thing is that we won. All I was worried about was winning the game and we did that.

“It couldn’t work out any better for the team and obviously myself and I’ll be enjoying the Premier League with Swansea next season.

“I’ve come here to get football week in, week out and I’ve done that. It’s given me confidence to go and prove myself and now I have to go and do it at the next level.”

We’ll continue on the same path, it’s the reason we are where we are. Huw Jenkins

Swansea chairman Huw Jenkins has promised his side will continue to play the kind of attractive passing football that earned them promotion, saying: “We’ll continue on the same path, it’s the reason we are where we are.

“A few people doubted we could compete in the Championship but we’ve proved we could. That culminated in the win yesterday and we’ll carry that forward.”

He added: “The profile will rise. The coverage, money and finances involved in the Premier League is fantastic and a massive difference from where we were as a club 30 years ago when we got into the old First Division.”

Swansea’s promotion means they will become the first Welsh club to play in English football’s top flight from August, going up alongside Championship leaders QPR and runners-up Norwich.

Many commentators have put the value of victory in the Championship play-offs at £90million, most of which is expected to come from increased television revenue.