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When crisis intrudes into everyday lives, personal worlds shrink and important events are reduced to near irrelevance. Sheffield Wednesday supporters understand that better than most. They have endured so much misery for so long that even Sunday’s potential relegation-sealing Steel City derby has lost some of its old significance.
“If you win it’ll be like kicking a cat,” Dan Fudge, host of the Wednesday Week podcast and YouTube channel says to Nick Wylie from the Sheffield United Way in this week’s broadcast. “We’ve got bigger things to worry about than bragging rights.”
So how did it come to this? Why are Wednesday, four times English title winners and three times FA Cup winners, staring at a February relegation to League One, at Bramall Lane, this weekend?
On a purely statistical level, the title of a recent edition of the Wednesday Til I Die podcast offers a helpful clue: “We scored a goal.” That references Wednesday’s first goal in 11 games. It came against Millwall last Saturday, a game Henrik Pedersen’s young and inexperienced side lost 2-1, in the process suffering a 10th consecutive defeat. Wednesday’s last Championship point was collected on 29 December, in a goalless draw against Blackburn. The season’s sole league triumph, a 2-0 victory at Portsmouth, arrived in September.
Such feeble form comes in the context of the off-pitch travails that resulted in Wednesday being docked 12 points for entering administration after their former owner Dejphon Chansiri agreed to end his near 11 years at the helm and sell up in October. A further six points were deducted in December for repeated late payment of wages, leaving Wednesday bottom of the Championship on minus seven points. That sets the scene for an ignominious fall from grace on Sunday, although results elsewhere on Saturday could dictate Wednesday are already down by the time they make the short journey across the city.
“From a symbolic viewpoint, it [relegation] happening at Bramall Lane is not something we want, but most fans have been expecting relegation for some time now,” says Steve Chu, secretary of the Sheffield Wednesday Supporters’ Trust. “One hundred per cent of the blame [for this] lies at Mr Chansiri’s door. There’s been massive underinvestment in core infrastructure and we’re living with the consequences.”
No English Football League club have previously been relegated in February yet this unwanted record, not to mention the indignity of its potential rubber stamping at Bramall Lane, worries Wednesday fans less than the apparent stalling of the club’s long-mooted takeover. A source involved in the due diligence process has said the proposed buyout is in danger of “unravelling”.
Chansiri’s decision to sell triggered a two-month auction run by experienced football administrator Begbies Traynor. It announced its recommended preferred bidders on Christmas Eve. A three-man consortium, comprising the former professional gambler James Bord, German AI entrepreneur Felix Roemer and Jordanian businessman Alsharif Faisal Bin Jamil, is understood to have paid a multimillion pound deposit and agreed a fee in excess of £30m to take control at Hillsborough.
Significantly their proposed takeover has still to be ratified by the EFL, with the consortium’s assessment under the mandatory Owners’ and Directors’ Test (ODT) believed to be at an early stage. The EFL was only given written notice of the preferred bidders’ identities on 9 January, and did not receive the first tranche of documentation from the consortium until several weeks later.
Last month it was reported that there were concerns the process could drag on until the summer due to queries regarding the consortium’s source of funds. These questions have been magnified by two of the three members possessing backgrounds in the gambling industry. A spokesperson for the bidders has described the offer as “privately funded”.
To complicate matters further, the newly formed Independent Football Regulator (IFR) is also conducting inquiries before assuming responsibility for administering the ODT, backed by parliamentary statute in May. A source said that the IFR has reservations about the bidders but there are also concerns about a lack of viable alternatives.
The administrator warns that, without a sale, Wednesday will be declared bankrupt. That would place the prospect of their involvement in League One next season in serious jeopardy. Thankfully the club have sufficient funding to complete this season after offloading the talismanic Barry Bannan to Millwall in January, when they also received £500,000 from Chelsea for 17-year-old defender Yisa Alao.
While Begbies held serious talks with at least six interested parties during the auction period, including the former Newcastle owner Mike Ashley, Bord’s consortium submitted by far the biggest bid. No losing bidder appears keen to return to the negotiating table. The investment required to upgrade Hillsborough is believed to have concerned several, with one saying that renovating the dilapidated stadium would cost £85m and upgrading the training ground a further £15m.
Pedersen, promoted from assistant manager when Danny Röhl departed last July, wants new practice pitches. “We need to move the ball quickly so we can challenge the brain and technique of opponents,” he says. “But we can’t play quickly on our training pitch.” Chris Wilder, his playoff-chasing counterpart from across town, remains unmoved. “There’s sympathy for people who haven’t been paid,” he says. “But football’s a ruthless business. There’s a lot on the line for us, too.”
Although Begbies remains confident Wednesday’s sale will be eventually completed, four months in administration tells its own story. “It’s taking time but we’d rather proper due diligence is done,” says Chu. “Wednesday’s still a big club with incredible support but we’ve been out of the Premier League for 26 years and this decision needs to be right.”
