Sheffield Wednesday: Sale could ‘revolutionise’ Owls, says joint administrator of Championship club

Sheffield Wednesday: Sale could ‘revolutionise’ Owls, says joint administrator of Championship club


Parties with “significant financial means” are interested in buying Sheffield Wednesday and could “revolutionise the club”, says joint administrator Kris Wigfield.

The Sheffield Wednesday Supporters’ Trust, meanwhile, has revealed it is to raise funds to sign players while the club is in administration.

The Championship club and the company which owns Hillsborough were placed into administration on 24 October, with HMRC preparing to serve a winding-up order over a debt of around £1.7m. It brought to an end Dejphon Chansiri’s 10-year ownership of the Owls, with Begbies Traynor appointed as administrators.

Wigfield revealed that the club had been run on such a shoestring under Chansiri. He said that after supporters flooded back after a boycott, by January the administrators could be running the club at a profit of around £1m.

Seven bidders have already come forward, and more are expected.

“We’re pretty confident we’ve got the cashflow sorted now, so as long as fans continue to buy tickets at the rate we’ve predicted, then we’ll be OK,” Wigfield told BBC Sport.

“We’re making a lot more from the club shop than we were previously. Yesterday in the kiosks [inside the ground] we made 50% more than the club usually would from a similar-sized crowd.

“We’ve now got seven bidders that have shown proof of funds. We’re expecting that to increase. We showed one around today, of the seven, but we’ll probably end up with nine or 10 serious bidders.

“We need them to satisfy us that they will make the club viable, and we need them to satisfy us that they will pass the EFL fit and proper test. But beyond that it is really who makes the best offer, not necessarily who would be the best custodian for the club.

“All of the seven interested parties that we’ve got at the moment are likely to significantly improve the situation, and a few of the parties have got significant financial means who would probably revolutionise the club.”



BBC Sport

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *