FORMER Swansea City director Mel Nurse has bought the club's £800,000 debt from former owners Ninth Floor, the Evening Post can reveal.

In a fax to chairman Tony Petty, leaked to the Post this afternoon, Nurse confirmed he had acquired the debt and said he was desperate for the club to survive and worried for its future as regards its position in the league.

The Post revealed yesterday that Nurse had purchased the club car park and club shop from the former owners.

This latest twist in the Swansea saga could lead to pressure being put on Petty to repay the debt now held by Nurse.

Neither Nurse nor Petty were available for comment.

The fax from Nurse said: "Yesterday I acquired from Ninth Floor Plc the indebtedness of the Swansea City Association Football Club Limited to them.

"I am grateful to them for their continuing efforts to aid the club. As a former player and captain of the club I am desperate to secure its survival in the Football League.

"The club has to be stabilised if it is not to fold financially. Sponsors need to be attracted and further support generated and the current adverse publicity taken with the feelings of the general public in Swansea may prove fatal.

"The league table shows that the club is in real danger of dropping out of the league through poor results.

"I feel that this would be an inevitable consequence of the sale or release of its senior players.

"I am in consultation with my advisors to determine those steps that I should now take to safeguard its survival."

Meanwhile, former club chairman Steve Hamer has hit out at Petty, branding him an opportunist, and Mike Lewis, the man who sold the club on to the Aussie-based businessman.

Hamer resigned from the Vetch boardroom after refusing to sign the prospectus for Swansea's the then planned flotation on the Alternative Investment Market of the Stock Exchange.

Since then the club has lurched from one crisis to another and Hamer is saddened at what has happened since his departure.

"It is very tragic," he said. "This guy Tony Petty is clearly an opportunist but the real culprit is Mike Lewis, who actually took over the club from Ninth Floor for a £1.

"He (Lewis) effectively handed this club to Tony Petty without, I believe, any reference to the other board of directors. I think Mr Petty has misread the script. I don't think he understands the depth of feeling in Swansea.

"If I were him I'd get back on a jet very quickly and get back to Australia."