The Sydney Swans are a professional Australian rules football club, based in Sydney, New South Wales. The club competes in the Australian Football League, the sport’s premier league. The Sydney Swans football club was established in 1874 in Melbourne, Victoria as the South Melbourne Football Club and initially played in the Victorian Football Association. Sydney joined seven other clubs in 1896 in founding the breakaway Victorian Football League, 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. The Swans have won 5 premierships while competing in the AFL. They won premierships in 1909, 1918 and 1933 before experiencing a 72-year premiership drought—the longest of any team in the competition’s history.