AFL Sydney Swans v Essendon

The Sydney Swans are a professional Australian rules football club, based in Sydney, New South Wales. The club competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's premier league.

Sydney was established in 1874 in Melbourne, Victoria as the South Melbourne Football Club and initially played in the Victorian Football Association (VFA). Sydney joined seven other clubs in 1896 in founding the breakaway Victorian Football League (VFL), since renamed the AFL. During a period of expansion for the VFL, Sydney became the first club in the competition to be based outside of Victoria when they relocated to Sydney in 1982. As of 2021, the club fields a reserves team in the Victorian Football League.

Sydney has won 5 premierships while competing in the AFL. It won premierships 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 club's 2005 Grand Final victory, which was later followed by another premiership in 2012.

Originally known as the "Bloods" in reference to the red 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. The club's headquarters and training facilities are located at the Sydney Cricket Ground, which has been the club's playing home ground since 1982.