How much Swansea City nearly signed Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang for | OneFootball

Swansea City were close to signing Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang in the summer of 2013

There are a number of well-known players that Swansea City almost signed over the years.

One such example is ex-Arsenal and Chelsea striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, who spent four years at the Emirates during his most prominent stint in English football.

The Gabon international reached the top of the game during the peak of his powers, also playing for the likes of Barcelona and Borussia Dortmund.

But there’s an alternate scenario whereby he ends up plying his trade with Swansea during their time in the Premier League.

Here we take a look at how much the Swans almost paid to sign Aubameyang before he instead joined Dortmund in the summer of 2013…

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang’s £8.5 million price tag

It has been reported by Wales Online that French club Saint-Étienne set an asking price of £8.5 million in the summer of 2013.

It has been claimed that a meeting was held between the two sides over a potential move to the Welsh outfit.

Michael Laudrup was in charge of the club, and had recently overseen their impressive EFL Cup triumph, a 5-0 win over Bradford City at Wembley Stadium, which had earned the team qualification to the Europa League.

The signing of Michu in the previous summer had highlighted how important Swansea’s recruitment strategy had been in their rise to European football, signing the Spaniard for a remarkable £2 million.

However, a deal for Aubameyang failed to come to fruition, and the forward instead made the switch to Germany to sign for Jurgen Klopp’s Borussia Dortmund team.

A 19-goal campaign in Ligue 1 had seen the then-24-year-old become a hot commodity on the transfer market, and Swansea will now always look back on and wonder what could’ve been had they signed him.

Swansea went on to finish 12th in the Premier League that season, the beginning of a decline that saw them relegated in 2018, and yet to return to the division in the years since.

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang’s success

While Swansea were on their slow decline back to the Championship, Aubamayeng was in the process of raising his profile to become one of Europe’s top strikers.

His first campaign in Germany saw him score 13 times from 32 appearances in the Bundesliga, with the forward playing second fiddle in attack to Robert Lewandowski.

But the Poland international’s 2014 exit saw Aubameyang take on the mantle of leading man, a role that would see him score 85 more goals in the German top flight across three-and-a-half seasons before finally arriving in English football with Arsenal.

During his time at the Emirates, he played a role in the Gunners’ FA Cup triumph in 2020, to go along with his DFB Pokal win with Dortmund, even scoring twice for Mikel Arteta’s side in their 2-1 win over Chelsea in an empty Wembley.

The now-35-year-old also enjoyed success in Spain, winning a La Liga title during his time with Barcelona in 2023, albeit only playing a bit-part role for the Catalan outfit at this stage in his career.