It is the Club’s third successive profit.
The result was announced by retiring Chairman, Richard Colless AM, who attended his last board meeting today having served on the board for over 20 years.
Mr Colless, who announced in May that he would not seek re-election beyond his current term, elected to stand down at the December board meeting, rather than the February AGM as previously advised.
“The result was pleasing given the Club’s continuing focus on ensuring its football operations are fully resourced providing the team with the best opportunity to consistently play finals and hence challenge for the AFL Premiership and be seen as a leading and respected entity in the AFL competition,” Mr Colless said.
“We continue to provide a fully resourced Academy with 60 coaches in the community and over 570 boys aged nine to 18 in various programs in three metropolitan and six regional locations, to be overseen by new Academy coach Michael O’Loughlin.
“2013 highlights the vagaries of operating an elite football team with this year the Club experiencing its highest number of injuries in the last ten years with many games played with almost half the premiership team not playing. Despite this, the Club not only did well on the field but it also did well off the field to post a reasonable profit.
“I am really pleased we managed to grow our membership to over 36,000 off the back of our premiership year in 2012 as we welcomed over 10,000 new members to the Club.
“We are targeting over 40,000 members in 2014.
“Even more pleasing is the AFL has just released the annual Member Satisfaction Survey and our members continue to rate our member services highly.
“Our Corporate Partnerships team managed to grow sponsorships and hospitality in a challenging market and we continue to acknowledge and thank our Principal Partner QBE for its long term support, and Major Partners Citi and Volkswagen.
“Melbourne continues to be an important and critical part of our structure with membership and profit records being achieved in 2013.
“Turning to 2014, we look forward to the new season. The redevelopment of the Noble, Bradman and Messenger Stands at the SCG will greatly enhance the game day experience for both Swans and SCG Members. We are hopeful of a number of sell-out games at the SCG in 2014.
“We thank both our stadia partners, the SCG and ANZ Stadium, for their support and co-operation in the past year.
“It has been an honour for me to serve this great Club for over 20 years and there are simply too many highlights to mention.
“I wish incoming Chairman Andrew Pridham all the best for the future and I am sure he will do an outstanding job.
“Finally, I want to stress that ownership of this great club remains in the hands of our members and supporters who, unlike shareholders in public companies, basically invest emotion, passion and time which is the foundation upon which our culture is built.”
