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Media caption,Selling Sheffield Wednesday - watch the story of the club's desperate fight for survival
ByDale JohnsonFootball issues correspondent- Published58 minutes ago
- 40 Comments
Sheffield Wednesday supporters thought they had won the war. But another battle has begun.
Six months after the fans helped to force the Championship club into administration, ending of the ownership of Dejphon Chansiri, the fight is now with the EFL.
"There is a real, credible threat to the future of Sheffield Wednesday," James Silverwood, the vice-chair of the club's Supporters' Trust, told BBC Sport.
The row is about how the club comes out of administration.
The EFL says it must enforce its rules, but if it does so at the most strict level Silverwood says it would be "excessive and punitive".
Wednesday are likely to start next season in League One on -15 points if they fail to come out of administration paying enough to unsecured creditors. There could also be severe spending restrictions over transfer fees and salaries.
It could lead to a second season of no hope and another relegation to League Two.
Silverwood fears that if the EFL does not show some flexibility the club's preferred bidder, Arise Capital Partners, could walk away.
"There is the potential that under those draconian restrictions, Sheffield Wednesday are not investable," Silverwood added.
"And if nobody invests in Sheffield Wednesday, then it will be liquidated. We lose over 170 years of football in heritage and history."
The clock is ticking for the EFL to find a solution that keeps everyone happy - the rest of the league, the Wednesday supporters and the club's prospective new owners.
How Sheffield Wednesday ended up here
Image source, Getty ImagesImage caption, Sheffield Wednesday have been in administration since 24 October
Wednesday supporters feel they have been repeatedly hammered already, all due to mismanagement by Chansiri.
The Thai businessman sold off the club's best players last summer - or simply lost them because he had not paid them - in a desperate attempt to cling on.
Relegation from the Championship was a formality before 18 points were deducted over administration and multiple financial breaches by Chansiri, who has been banned from football for three years.
The South Yorkshire club were relegated last month, in record time, at the home of their city rivals, Sheffield United.
And it could get worse.
The Owls are four games from equalling Derby County's all-time record of 36 league matches without a win between 2007 and 2008.
There are two more attempts to get a victory at Hillsborough to avoid the ignominy of becoming the first club to go an entire year without a home win.
After a takeover bid failed last month, hope arrived with another preferred bidder - Arise Capital Partners, a consortium led by David Storch. It is hoped this might be completed in early May.
But the offer to buy the club is just under £20m, which BBC Sport understands when broken down will represent around six pence in the pound to the unsecured creditors - of which Chansiri would be the major beneficiary.
It is way short of the 25p in the pound required to avoid a 15-point penalty next season.
On top of that the club will face a business plan to limit spending.
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Proposed EFL punishments 'make it a tough task'
The EFL has a problem. It wants Wednesday to come out of administration but needs to be fair to the club's rivals in League One next season.
Achieving both is no easy task.
The EFL argues that it would send the wrong message if Wednesday could spend freely after coming out of administration, especially without paying a fair amount to creditors.
But it is not just about the 15 points.
Wednesday cannot pay any kind of transfer fees until the summer of 2027 after sanctions enforced under Chansiri's control.
Then the EFL has proposed a total salary ceiling of £7m, with individual player wages capped at £7,000-a-week.
The last time the Owls were in League One they had a wage bill of more than double that, at £15.8m.
Football finance expert Kieran Maguire told BBC Sport this would put the club "in the bottom half of League One" on wages.
"It is probably not dissimilar to clubs such as Bristol Rovers or Lincoln or Cambridge United," Maguire said.
"When Derby County were promoted, they had a £17m budget. I'd imagine that the budgets for Birmingham City and Wrexham last season would be far in excess of that.
"It's going to make it a tough task. And with a highly likely 15-point penalty even more difficult."
Perhaps most crucially, the Owls do not have a functioning team. They would have to try to build a squad without funds and start with that points deduction.
"It means that Wednesday would be fishing in a pool which they probably don't want to be in," Maguire added.
"There are players in League Two who are being paid more than the Wednesday squad are on at present."
'All we're asking is to be left alone to rebuild'
Image source, Getty ImagesImage caption, Sheffield Wednesday took their protests against owner Dejphon Chansiri to the Thai Embassy in London
Sheffield Wednesday fans feel that every time there is some hope, there is another sledgehammer just around the corner.
Silverwood says that the Trust does not expect the slate to be wiped clean, but there needs to be some "common sense".
"Minus 15, a transfer fee restriction, and the significant wage cap, both annually and weekly, is excessive and punitive," Silverwood said.
"Everybody accepts that Sheffield Wednesday will come out with some form of restriction.
"But there is scope in the rules for there to be some discretion around the impact on the club and the community.
"All we're asking is to be left alone to rebuild and bring the community back together again."
Coventry provide a glimmer of hope. The Sky Blues were deducted 10 points rather than the requisite 15 after the EFL accepted there were "exceptional circumstances" in 2013 - albeit under different regulations.
The argument is that if Wednesday aren't a special case, then what would be? Arise Capital Partners has promised fans it will fight all the way for a fair outcome.
One suggestion is that the 15-point deduction should be applied this season, but that could send the wrong message to clubs like Derby, Reading and Wigan who satisfied the 25p rule.
EFL regulations say that a club will be deducted 15 points in the season after the insolvency event. While there is discretion on timing, this is only intended to cover a club exiting administration after the next season has started. So in Wednesday's case, it would apply to 2026/27 regardless of when a takeover is completed.
Silverwood said that while the EFL had been "helpful and supportive" during the death throes of Chansiri, since then there has been too much focus on rigid application of the regulations.
"They are very blase about the risks to the future of Sheffield Wednesday," Silverwood added. "They're blinkered into thinking of it purely as a competition problem, rather than as a football problem."
When Luton were deducted 20 points for a similar administration offence in 2008, supporters argued that the previous owner was to blame. The Football League said that the integrity of the competition took precedent.
The EFL insists that exiting administration is a collaborative process, taking into account future financial information, sufficiency and monitoring.
Reports that the reported limits are set in stone are inaccurate and each case is taken on its merits. Discussions have already been held with the preferred bidder and will continue.
An EFL spokesperson told BBC Sport: "The League remains fully focused on working with both the preferred bidder and the administrators to support the club's exit from administration, while respecting the requirements of the insolvency policy and the League's regulations, as agreed by all member clubs.
"Those discussions are now under way, and the league will work to reach an outcome as quickly as possible, ensuring appropriate levels of due diligence are applied throughout the process."
After successful protests against Chansiri, Silverwood said that similar action is "not on the table" at EFL offices at the moment.
But he added: "Never say never."
Chansiri still casts a heavy shadow
While the EFL and the preferred bidders try to find a negotiated agreement, the future of Wednesday still ultimately remains in the hands of one man.
Chansiri is the major unsecured creditor, lodging a claim of £63.1m for his directors' loans. In total, unsecured creditors are owed £69.7m.
It is money he has no chance of recovering and it is driving the club to the 15-point deduction. There is no prospect of any potential buyer paying Chansiri close to the £17.75m required to reach 25p in the pound.
The problem is the EFL's regulations do not differentiate between the unsecured creditors.
The very people who irresponsibly run up debt using money they do not have remain king makers even after they have been removed.
There is a strong argument that this should change, that it actually harms the trade creditors - Wednesday have 193 from laundry companies to travel providers to construction firms.
If directors' loan were to be treated separately, then these local businesses could even be guaranteed a higher return.
In 2022, Derby were lucky as former owner Mel Morris wrote off over £100m in loans. If he had not, the Rams would not have got close to 25p in the pound.
Chansiri could significantly reduce his claim and the threat of the points deduction would go away.
"It is the most direct way to solve this problem," Silverwood added. "But it relies on a deeply irrational man being rational.
"I just don't think it's going to happen."
Chansiri may be gone, but he still casts a heavy shadow over Hillsborough.
