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Wednesday fans asked by owner to bail out club

Sheffield Wednesday’s owner Dejphon Chansiri has asked the club’s fans to raise £2 million in the coming days to clear debts and pay wages.

The millionaire Thai businessman said he had a problem with “cashflow” and has asked for supporters to bail the club out of their mess, promising to pay them back with interest.

The EFL has placed the club, who are bottom of the Sky Bet Championship, under a registration embargo — meaning they cannot register any new players without prior written consent — over money owed to HM Revenue & Customs, and Chansiri revealed that if those debts are not paid in the coming days the club face a three-window transfer ban.

Chansiri also said that players and staff may not be paid this month and has called on supporters to help.   In September the Wednesday owner threatened not to invest any more money into the club because he believed he was being treated unfairly by the supporters.

Wednesday are nine days into a “persistent default” under EFL regulations, having failed to pay their HMRC debt, and if they fail to pay players’ wages, which Chansiri said was a possibility, they would have another default against their name. If clubs accrue 30 days of breaches between July 1 and June 30 they are liable to be banned from registering new players for three transfer windows.

In response to Chansiri’s comments, Sheffield Wednesday Supporters’ Trust posted a statement on X (formerly Twitter) which read: “Regarding the chairman’s interview . . . we are astounded by the request for fans to pay a £2m HMRC bill. A fit and proper owner would not ask fans to do this.”

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