Swansea City director John van Zweden has spoken of his happiness at making £12m from the sale of the club.
Van Zweden, a 54-year-old Dutchman who invested £50,000 into the Swans back in 2002, owns an 8.75 per cent share.
His claim to have a signed a deal to sell to Americans Jason Levien and Steve Kaplan would value the purchase at around £115m.
The sale of the Premier League club is expected to be completed next week, even though the Supporters Trust, whose members own a 21% share, have deep misgivings and feel they have been badly let down by chairman Huw Jenkins.
Van Zweden has given an interview to Dutch publication Voetbal International and is quoted as saying, “I’m really happy with this deal.
“Strangely enough, there is not much change for me because I will stay involved with the club. The new owner and I have spoken.”
Van Zweden speaks of his pride and happiness at the deal but has promised not to immediately go out and buy a Rolls Royce.
Levien is a former lawyer turned agent who is currently General Managing Owner of MLS side DC United, based in Washington.
Kaplan is currently co-executive chairman of the NBA’s Memphis Grizzlies and founder of Oaktree Capital Management.
Levien – who has spent the last week in Swansea – is expected to travel to Newcastle to see this weekend’s fixture. Any deal will be subject to Premier League approval.
But the Trust held a meeting on Thursday night at which their board director Huw Cooze spoke of his “hurt” at having been kept in the dark during months of secret negotiations involving other directors.
He said: “I am pretty damned hurt about this, absolutely hurt. It’s not something I would do. I did count Huw Jenkins, Leigh Dineen, Brian Katzen, Martin Morgan and John van Zweden as friends. That friendship has gone backwards. That’s the honest truth. I can’t be any more honest than that.”
Trust chairman Phil Sumbler has admitted the Trust are powerless to stop the sale going through, but they are threatening to continue a vocal opposition.
He said: “The sale of shares is something we can’t stop. What we can do is make a lot of noise. For me the disappointment was not being told. We knew they wanted investment. We knew some wanted to sell.
“It wasn’t a surprise when we were told. The only surprise was that it’s so far down the line.
“There are documents floating around that (John) Moores and (Charles) Noell (previous potential investors) got nowhere near producing. We just don’t like the fact that they were not keeping us in the loop.
“There’s absolutely no reason why we couldn’t have been told about this in December.
“Some of what’s happened over the last few weeks will change the dynamics of this football club. We have been let down.
“We have been kept in the dark. We have been accused of leaking things that then come out. All we are doing is looking out for you guys.”
