Skip to main content

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.”

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Fulham requires big funding from owner

After lengthy delays, Fulham’s shiny, new Riverside Stand has finally opened, creating “a unique Thameside destination with first class facilities for supporters and partners on match days, as well as for the wider community year-round”. This ambitious project has increased Craven Cottage’s capacity by around 4,000 to 29,600, while it has also taken advantage of the club’s fantastic location and wealthy catchment area by including two Michelin star restaurants, a rooftop swimming pool, corporate hospitality and event space, all benefiting from views of the Thames. Chief executive Alistair Mackintosh observed, “Fulham is the sort of club that can have a business class or first class and have fans that turn left on a plane.” Indeed, there is also an exclusive members club – with a football season ticket as an optional extra. It’s fair to say that “the times they are a-changing”, as this is a long way from the traditional pie and a pint. However, in a world where clubs face the tw...

Threat of financial calamity removed from Baggies

West Bromwich Albion had effectively been in decline ever since the club was sold to a Chinese consortium in August 2016, paying a figure north of £200m to buy former owner Jeremy Peace’s stake. Controlling shareholder Guochuan Lai’s ownership was fairly disastrous for the club, but his unloved tenure finally came to an end after Bilkul Football WBA, a company ultimately owned by Florida-based entrepreneur Shilen Patel and his father Dr Kiran Patel, acquired an 87.8% shareholding in West Bromwich Albion Group Limited, the parent company of West Bromwich Albion Football Club. This change in ownership was urgently required, due to the numerous financial problems facing West Brom, including growing high-interest debt and serious cash flow concerns, following years of no investment from the former owner. Indeed, West Brom’s auditors had already rung the alarm bell in the 2021/22 accounts when they cast doubt on the club’s ability to continue as a going concern without making player s...

A poor financial record, but new hope at Everton

I recently saw an amusing video online in which a group of Everton fans were rebuked in jest for being hopeful.  Football fans in general tend to swing between excessive optimism and excessive pessimism, but for many it seems that moaning is in their bloodstream (Spurs fans probably take the trophy).  However, Everton fans have had plenty to moan about on and off the pitch.   Let’s hope that a new era is about to begin for this grand old club. Everton’s 2023/24 financial results covered a fairly momentous season, when they ended up 15th in the Premier League, though they would finished three places higher if they had not received an 8-point deduction for breaching the Premier League’s Profitability and Sustainability Regulations (PSR). It was a worrying time for Everton fans, as the club faced a “perfect storm” of issues, including large financial losses, an ever increasing debt burden, a challenging stadium build and the tortuous sale of the club. There were eve...