Swansea City's pre-season campaign is well under way.
The majority of the club's first-team stars along with several members of the youth set-up are undergoing a week-long training camp in Spain under new boss Steve Cooper.
But July 1 marks a significant day.
The men officially released by the Swans following the conclusion of the 2018/19 campaign are no longer contracted to the club.
Leroy Fer, Martin Olsson, Wilfried Bony and Luciano Narsingh - along with numerous youth players - were all released by the club on May 18, along with Wayne Routledge who was later handed a new one-year deal along with the possibility of a future role behind the scenes at SA1.
But given that the contracts of the aforementioned stars expired on the final day of June, today marks the date that those released by the Swans are no longer on the club's books, which is music to the ears of the top brass at the Liberty Stadium.
Last year's relegation from the top flight hit the club hard, and the first team playing squad was picked apart in the two transfer windows under Graham Potter in a bid to help stabilise the Swans financially.
And it's safe to say Swansea will be saving a significant amount by shifting Bony and others off the wage bill this summer.
The Ivory Coast striker - now with Qatari outfit Al-Arabi - was paid in the region of £100,000 a week in wages, which works out at a staggering £5.2m a year.
Narsingh's disastrous Swansea career is now finally over, and he - along with former club captain Fer and left-back Olsson - each earned in the region of £50,000 per week in wages, or £2.6m a year each.
So the four players combined banked approximately £250,000 a week in wages during their time at Swansea, which amounts to a total of £13m a year. And while they were not as pressing, there's also the smaller-sized fees earned by all of the Under-23 players who were released, including Adam King, Keston Davies and Ryan Blair.
Although that's far from the end of things.
It's no secret that the Swans are determined to shift Jordan Ayew, Andre Ayew and Borja Baston off the wage bill as swiftly as possible as they continue to balance the books while Daniel James' big money move to Manchester United will no doubt significantly reduce the need for other key members of Cooper's squad to be sold.
But as of today, the wage bill is certainly looking significantly healthier as far chairman Trevor Birch and the other key decision makers are concerned.
