Sydney Swans
Names
Full name	Sydney Swans Limited[1][2]
Former name(s)	South Melbourne Football Club (1874–1981) The Swans (1982)
Nickname(s)	Swans, Swannies, Bloods
Leading goalkicker	Isaac Heeney (37 goals)
Bob Skilton Medal	Isaac Heeney
Club details
Founded	19 June 1874; 152 years ago (19 June 1874)
Colours	Red   White
Competition	AFL: Senior men AFLW: Senior women VFL: Reserves men
Coach	AFL: Dean Cox AFLW: Colin O'Riordan VFL: Nick Malceski
Captain(s)	AFL: Callum Mills, Isaac Heeney (vice-captain) AFLW: Lucy McEvoy, Sofia Hurley (vice-captain), Cynthia Hamilton (vice-captain) VFL: Nic Shipley
Membership (2025)	76,674[3]
Number-one ticket holder	Jason Kimberley[4]
Premierships	VFL/AFL (5) 1909 1918 1933 2005 2012 VFA (5) 1881 1885 1888 1889 1890 Reserves (4) 2005 2006 2007 2008 South Melbourne in italics.
Ground	AFL: Sydney Cricket Ground (48,000) AFLW: Henson Park (20,000) North Sydney Oval (10,000) VFL: Sydney Cricket Ground, Tramway Oval (1,000)
Former ground	Lakeside Oval (1874–1981) Stadium Australia (2002–2015)
Training ground	Outdoor: Sydney Cricket Ground, Tramway Oval, Moore Park Indoor: Basil Sellers Richard Colless Centre (Royal Hall of Industries), Moore Park
Uniforms
Home Clash Heritage
Other information
Official website	sydneyswans.com.au
Current season

The Sydney Swans are an Australian rules football club based in Sydney, New South Wales. The men's team competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), and the women's team in the AFL Women's (AFLW). The Swans also field a reserves men's team in the Victorian Football League (VFL). The Sydney Swans Academy, consisting of the club's best junior development signings, contests Division 2 of the men's and women's underage national championships and the Talent League.

The club's origins trace back to 21 March 1873, when a meeting was held at the Clarendon Hotel in South Melbourne to establish a junior football club, to be called the South Melbourne Football Club.^[5] The club commenced playing in 1874 at its home ground, Lakeside Oval in Albert Park. Playing as South Melbourne, it participated in the Victorian Football Association (VFA) competition from 1878. In 1880 the club merged with the Albert Park Football Club, adopting the latter's red and white colours.^[6] The club joined the breakaway Victorian Football League (VFL) as a founding member in 1897.

Originally known as the "Bloods" in reference to the red colour used on players' guernseys, the Swan emblem was adopted in 1933 after a journalist at the time referred to them using the moniker following a large influx of Western Australian players. In 1982, it became the first professional Australian football club to permanently relocate interstate (from Victoria to New South Wales). Initially playing in Sydney as "The Swans", it was given its current name in 1983.^[7]

The club has a rivalry with the Greater Western Sydney Giants, with whom they contest the Sydney Derby. Their headquarters and training facilities are located in the Moore Park sporting precinct, with offices and indoor training at the Royal Hall of Industries and outdoor sessions conducted on the adjacent Tramway Oval and Sydney Cricket Ground, the latter being the site of the club's senior men's team home matches since 1982. The Swans have won five VFL/AFL premierships including 1909, 1918, and 1933, before experiencing a 72-year premiership drought—the longest of any team in the competition's history. This premiership drought ended with the 2005 premiership, which was later followed by another title in 2012. Their five premierships are supplemented by fourteen grand final defeats, the most recent of which came in 2024. According to Roy Morgan statistics, the Swans are one of the most supported clubs in the AFL with more than a million fans in 2021;^[8] it has also been the most supported club in the league for the past nineteen years consecutively, dating back to 2006.^[9]