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Swansea City's chief operating officer Chris Pearlman believes the club and Swansea Council are making good progress in discussions over the lease of the Liberty Stadium, with leader Rob Stewart hoping an agreement is weeks, rather than months away.

Plans for the Premier League club to acquire the lease of the stadium in order to help boost their commercial operation were first revealed in March, and both sides had initially been hopeful of a deal being concluded quickly.

However, the then-upcoming council elections and Swansea City's battle to avoid relegation from the Premier League ensured the matter had to be placed on the backburner until those events were concluded.

Even so, the club and the local authority had been thought to be a long way apart in their respective valuations of an annual fee for the lease. WalesOnline understands those valuations were some £1million apart.

The Swans hope negotiating a lease will allow them to capitalise on their status as a top-flight club, and they would look to explore stadium expansion and naming rights deals.

"I would say conversations are moving along in a very positive manner with the council," said Pearlman.

"I do not want to jinx it and there are still matters to be dealt with but since the end of the season and the council elections there are has been a renewed focus from all parties to sort something out.

"I am cautiously optimistic we are moving the right way.

"The reports we were far apart in terms of valuation was accurate, but we may have found some ways to bridge the gap that are beneficial to all parties."

But Pearlman was quick to state that there is no rush to getting a deal completed before the new season commences in mid-August, and insisted the club will not be rushed into accepting a deal that is not in the best interests of all parties involved in the discussions.

"It would be great to have it done before the start of next season but that is not realistic," he said.

"It would be great to have the parameters of an agreement ironed out before then but we are not under a massive time crunch to do a deal.

"We are not going to do a bad deal, and we will go from having much less risk to more risk.

"We see big opportunities to more effectively monetise the stadium and do what we want to do with expansion, but we do not need to do it tomorrow.

"We don't want to wait, but we are not going to do a bad deal. We are all keen to figure it out, but these things take time, these things are complex.

"So coming to an agreement that benefits all parties is what we want, that is out there but it takes a bit of time to figure out how that works."

The council built the £27 million Liberty Stadium in 2005, and would retain its role as landlord if the Swans were to sign a lease.

Council leader Rob Stewart said: "We will continue to work towards the right deal for the people of Swansea who invested £27million to build the stadium.



"We want to see the Swans and Ospreys continue to be successful. We believe a deal which gives the clubs more commercial freedom to make a success of the stadium while giving the taxpayer a fair return is within reach.



"Ideally we would like to come to an agreement within weeks rather than months."

The day-to-day running of the stadium, including commercial activity, is the remit of Swansea Stadium Management Company (SSMC), of which the council, Swansea City and the Ospreys are each one-third members.

It is believed Swansea City and the Ospreys have already broadly agreed the terms of how any deal would work between the two organisations.