Are Wednesday fams stuck with their unpopular owner?

The relationship between the club’s owner Dejphon Chansiri and the supporters looks to have irretrievably broken down.  Last year, the Thai businessman let rip, “I am the one who needs to pay around £2m on average every month. Some fans need to have more respect for owners of clubs and not be so selfish, thinking of their own benefit without doing anything good to the club.”

Unsurprisingly, there have been many protests against the ownership, including a banner at Hillsborough stating, “Dejphon Chansiri. Not fit or proper. Sell the club.”

It’s fair to say that matters did not improve at a recent fans’ forum, when club officials including Chansiri were involved in various heated exchanges with supporters.   Indeed, last season Chansiri had announced that he would not invest any more money into the club following protests against the owner, saying, “This is not acceptable and as a result I am not willing to inject more money while I am being treated unfairly by those fans.”

In the end, he did actually write another cheque to cover the club’s losses, but there has been precious little investment in the squad recently. Indeed, in December Röhl complained that there had been no discussions with the owner about potential targets in the current window.

The club’s response was fairly puerile, “If the manager requires reinforcements during the January transfer window, the onus is on him to source and provide a list of targets to present to the chairman, as has always been the case.”

In fairness to Chansiri, he very nearly took the club back to the Premier League, as Wednesday have twice reached the Championship play-offs during his tenure, albeit a fair while ago in 2015/16 and 2016/17.

He spent big on the squad during this period, but ultimately the gamble failed and led to the club having difficulties in complying with the EFL’s Profitability and Sustainability Rules.  Since those heady days, Wednesday have struggled.    They steadily fell down the Championship table, before being relegated to England’s third tier in 2020/21, bouncing back two seasons later.

Losses

In 2023/24 Wednesday’s pre-tax loss widened from £7.2m to £10.0m, despite revenue increasing £7.0m (36%) from £19.3m to a club record £26.3m, following promotion from League One to the Championship.

Their £10.0m loss is actually not too bad for the Championship, where no fewer than six clubs have lost more than twice as much per their latest accounts, namely Burnley £36m, Sheffield United £31m, Stoke City £26m, Birmingham City £25m, Blackburn Rovers £21m and QPR £20m.

Although it’s never great to lose money, Wednesday’s losses in the last three years have been pretty small compared to their recent past and much better than some of the early days of the Chansiri era, e.g. they lost a massive £35m in 2017/18.  In fact, the only time that they reported a profit in the last decade was 2018/19 – and that was purely thanks to the sale of their stadium.

Wednesday’s £26.3m revenue was mid-table in the Championship, albeit significantly lower than the clubs in receipt of parachute payments. To place this into perspective, Norwich City’s £73m last season was nearly three times as much as the Owls.  Wednesday were also a fair way below the highest earning clubs without parachute payments, such as Bristol City £42m, Sunderland £36m, Stoke City £32m and Middlesbrough £32m.

Many clubs have improved their bottom line with player trading, but this is a really weak point for Wednesday. In fact, they have only generated £2.0m profit in total from this activity in the last four years. The only time that they made more than £3m in the last decade was £6.2m in 2019/20, largely due to the sale of Lucas Joao to Reading.  An improvement in recruitment and player development would help generate funds to strengthen the squad, hence the focus on buying younger players with more potential.

Wednesday’s average attendance increased 5% from 25,380 to 26,760, which means this has grown by more than 4,000 in the last two years. However, this was still below the recent peak of 27,306 in 2016/17, when they finished 4th to qualify for the Championship play-offs.   This was actually more than six clubs in the Premier League, which is a sign of the club’s potential.

Chansiri has implemented some deeply unpopular ticket price rises in the last couple of years, despite the cost of living crisis, but the owner was defiant, “My message is that we must drive every revenue possible to be competitive and stay within the constraints of FFP.”

As a result, Wednesday reportedly have the most expensive adult season tickets in the Championship. In 2024/25 the cheapest ticket available cost £460 for early bird customers, rising to a staggering £510 in the final phase.

Wednesday’s commercial income fell £0.3m (4%) from £8.7m to £8.4m, which is somewhat surprising after promotion.  This suggests that the fraught relationship between the owner and the fans has damaged the club as a commercial proposition in the same way that Mike Ashley was a toxic presence at Newcastle United.

Following the sale of the stadium, the club now has to pay rent, which is a chunky £2.6m per annum. To place this into perspective, last season it was equivalent to a quarter of Wednesday’s net loss.

Lack of investment in the squad

Wednesday only spent £1.6m on new players in 2023/24, which again was one of the lowest in the Championship, e.g. Burnley splashed out £84m in 2022/23 (though that was inflated by covering two summer transfer windows), while Middlesbrough and Stoke City spent £19m and £18m respectively last season. As a more reasonable comparison, another club promoted from League One the previous season, namely Plymouth Argyle, spent twice as much as Wednesday with £3.2m.

The taps have been well and truly turned off at Hillsborough with only £6m spent in the transfer market in the last six years in total, partly due to a soft transfer embargo imposed by the EFL for a breach of financial rules.  This is in stark contrast to the somewhat crazy period after Chansiri’s arrival, when the club splashed out a hefty £37m in three years.

As a result of the very low transfer spend, Wednesday’s squad cost (per the accounts) has slumped from £34.8m in 2018 to just £3.1m. Amongst other things, this means that any players with realisable value have pretty much all left.

Wednesday’s gross debt increased by £10m from £58m to £68m, almost all of which is owed to Chansiri with “no set repayment or interest terms”. The owner’s debt includes £61.2m owed directly to Chansiri, up £10m last season, plus £6.6m for which he acts as a guarantor.

Since Chansiri bought the club from Milan Mandaric back in February 2015, he has provided £155m funding, comprising £69m loans, £25m share capital and £60m payments for the stadium sale. As the Strategic Report succinctly stated, Wednesday “remain dependent on the continued financial support from its shareholder.”

Ownership change?

Chansiri has sent mixed messages about whether he intends to remain owner. One moment he is suggesting that if the fans don’t want him at the club, he would sell; the next moment the club is saying, “The chairman does not see it as his responsibility to find a buyer when he has no intention of selling the club.”

There have been reports that Chansiri said he would sell the club to a consortium headed by Sheffield born, American based businessman Adam Shaw, though discussions did not get far after the owner apparently refused to sign an NDA.   Shaw said that Chansiri wanted £250m, while retaining a 30% share. This would value the club at around £350m, which seems pretty steep.

After promotion from League One, Sheffield Wednesday found life much tougher in the Championship, though this is not overly surprising, given that the club has one of the lowest budgets in the division in terms of wages, transfer spend and squad cost.

The finances have improved in the three years, but that is partly because of limited investment in the squad, which has made it more difficult for Wednesday to compete on the pitch. Furthermore, even though the bottom line is better, it should be noted that the club is still losing money.

Given the restrictions, Wednesday have actually done quite well this season and are currently just outside the play-off zone. This is again to Danny Röhl’s credit, though the young manager’s continuing success only makes it more likely that he will move on at some stage.