Sydney Swans Chairman Andrew Pridham delivered the following address at Tuesday's Annual General Meeting.

Welcome to today’s Sydney Swans Limited 2015 Annual General Meeting.

The financial result for 2014 was a profit of $847k on revenues of $46.5m and net assets at year end were $1.7m.

This is the Club’s fourth successive profit and could not have been achieved without the continuing financial support of our members and our long time Principal Partner QBE, Major Partners Citi and Volkswagen and our Premier Partners, including Cellarbrations.

Revenue, including finals revenue, grew by $3.7m (9%).

We welcomed over 9000 new members to the Club as we managed to grow our total membership to over 40,000 which was a fantastic achievement for our membership and fan engagement team.

Membership and match-day revenue increased seven per cent which was a very good result and reflected the SCG being back to full capacity following the completion of the new Noble Bradman Stand and the great facilities this stand now offers patrons.

Melbourne again was an important and critical part of our structure with membership records being achieved in 2014.

Sponsorship and marketing revenue increased 16% which was an outstanding result given the reasonably soft market for corporate hospitality last year.

The Club continued to invest in a fully resourced football department and a fully resourced Academy under head coach, Michael O’Loughlin.

The Academy had 60 coaches in the community with over 560 boys from under-11 to under-18 in various Academy programs in three metropolitan and six regional locations.

The Sydney Swans Academy costs over one million dollars per annum to run with the vast majority of this funded by the Club.

Whilst the cost is significant we believe it is an important investment into the development of players, coaches and fan engagement in NSW.

To-date only one player, Brandon Jack, has graduated from the Academy to a point of playing AFL football.

Regardless of its cost and limited on-field results thus far we believe the Academy system is one of, if not the most important game development initiatives in Australia.

The Academies will develop few AFL standard players relative to the number of boys who pass through the system.

However, along the way it develops players and coaches who bolster local clubs, and engrains in their family and friends a deep affection for the game, growing the fan and participation base for generations to come.

Needless to say it was very rewarding and encouraging to see our Academy investment of around five million dollars since 2010 result in three selections by the Sydney Swans at the 2014 Draft.

Three of our four picks were Academy boys (Isaac Heeney, Abaina Davis and Jack Hiscox) and we upgraded Daniel Robinson to the primary list. We also took Jordan Foote in the Rookie Draft.

I am confident that without the Academy none of these young men would be playing AFL at any level.

Our five million dollar investment is benefitting the entire competition with the national talent pool growing for all clubs. The competition should be buoyed by the increase of AFL talent coming out of NSW and Queensland academies and the impact that will have on the development of the code in these states.

In 2014, 23 million people watched our games on TV, we had an average website audience of 250,000 per month and on average over 32,000 people attended our home games.

Our fan base was reported to be 1,145,000.

Whilst the Club did not achieve the ultimate success in 2014, we can all be proud of what we achieved.

We finished on top of the ladder after the home and away season for the first time in almost 20 years.

We won the most games ever in a season and we won the most consecutive games ever in a season for this great Club.

Post the end of the 2014 season, it was my pleasure to announce that the Sydney Swans had entered into a 30 year agreement to play all of our games at the SCG.

This agreement commences in season 2017. We believe that this is what the majority of our members wanted.

The hiring agreement enables us to undertake long term planning for the development of world-class football and supporter facilities at this great venue.

I am excited about the prospect in the years to come to regularly witness sell-out games on this sacred SCG, where fans can arrive at our doorstep on the light rail from the city and enjoy the surrounding restaurants, bars and attractions of the surrounding inner-city suburbs and attractions pre and post games.

In December, the AFL announced that it would nominate Jason Ball for election as an AFL Commissioner at its forthcoming Annual General Meeting in March.

Jason has been a Director of the Sydney Swans since 2007 following his 193 game career, highlighted by two premierships, including our ground breaking 2005 victory.

Jason’s contribution to the Board overall and in particular in his role as Football Director has been incalculable. I wish him well in his role as a Commissioner.

Finally on behalf of the Board I want to acknowledge the leadership of Chief Executive Andrew Ireland across all segments of our operation and the commitment and effort of the management team and all of our wonderful and dedicated staff.