The 25-year-old, who nominated the Swans as his destination of choice at the beginning of the AFL Trade Period in October, will join his new team mates on Wednesday morning for his first pre-season training session with his new club.
Tippett, who played 104 games and kicked 188 goals for the Crows between 2008 and 2012, will be unavailable for the opening 11 weeks of the season as he serves a suspension over salary cap breaches surrounding his 2009 contract with the Crows.
Sydney Swans List & Recruit Strategy Manager Kinnear Beatson said it was a relief to have finally secured the services of the former Crow.
“It’s been an exciting day and it started off with finally getting Kurt to the club, which is a real coup for us,” Beatson told sydneyswans.com.au.
“For that to be finalised today was a relief for everybody and we’re really excited about that.
“It didn’t pan out exactly how everybody thought, but that’s not my responsibility or job to expand on that, but overall we’re really excited to get him here.”
Beatson said Tippett will be a welcome inclusion to the football club, which boasts a long history of successful key forwards.
He said Tippett’s ability to play both as a genuine forward as well as a ruckman would be a valuable asset for the Swans in 2013 and beyond.
“The Swans do have this affinity with, and our members and supporters love, genuine key forwards so he adds to that,” Beatson said.
“He’s an enormous forward target and we needed to address that. He’s got an enormous presence when he plays and he can also play in the ruck.”
Following on from the Swans Grand Final win, Beatson said the club were not prepared to trade any of the club’s premiership players, so when the chance to recruit Tippett arose, the Swans worked hard to secure a deal with the 25-year-old without letting go of any of the club’s 2012 stars.
“When you’re winning premierships and finishing high on the ladder each year it’s difficult to get your hands on elite junior talent through the draft unless you’re prepared to trade your players out, and we weren’t prepared to do that with the premiership group and it was never a consideration,” he said.
“With that in mind you’ve got to look at other opportunities of getting elite talent into your club and this was an opportunity that presented itself to us.”
In the AFL Rookie Draft the Sydney Swans selected:
