Sheffield Wednesday have been given a major blow ahead of their return to League One football next season as it is likely they will start on -15 points.
This is because none of the prospective buyers are prepared to pay the price of £15million for the club which have been already relegated from the Championship and sit on minus seven points and have no win in 30.
Former Newcastle owner Mike Ashley and American financier David Storch are the favourites to take over at Hillsborough.
However, Sky Sports have been told that none of the interested parties are willing to give any money to former owner Dejphon Chansiri. In simpler terms, they don’t want to pay half of the clubs purchase price to the Thai businessman.
James Bord was the preferred bidder to take over as owner of Sheffield Wednesday, but withdrew his interest from the club over two weeks ago.
However, he was prepared to pay the funds to Chansiri to get the deal over the line and in isolation, it would mean they would not receive the points deduction.
None of the current bids were anywhere near as high as Bord’s bid of £48million. Ashley’s most recent bid was in the region of £20million and there has been no news to indicate whether that had increased.
The EFL rules state that when someone is wanting to take over a club, all “football creditors” must be paid in full. Other creditors, such as Mr Chansiri, must be paid a quarter of what they owed.
If a club was to breach the EFL ruling, it sets off an automatic 15-point deduction and this is what Sheffield Wednesday are going to suffer from, which is a shame for fans, players and staff who will have to deal with this.
In his 11 years in charge of Wednesday, Chansiri loaned over £60m into the club and as this was never converted into share capital, it leaves him as the club’s largest creditor.
This means he is owed £15m of the £60m he loaned in, if they are to start next season without the serious points deduction.
Unfortunately, this is unlikely to happen – especially with all the costs involved in the club away from actually purchasing it, such as:
All figures from Sky Sports.
These fees are all on top of whatever the final fee is to actually buy the club and take over as well as not including players wage, signing players, staff and training ground where money may need spending.
I believe that it would be a shame if Sheffield Wednesday were forced to suffer another huge points deduction next season, especially with a new owner at the helm.
It restricts their chances of achieving promotion back to the Championship which isn’t the fault of players or staff at the club. However, EFL ruling is very clear and strict on the matter so whoever the next owner is will have to decide whether they want to spend an extra £15m or take the deduction.
