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Sheffield Wednesday, one of English football’s oldest clubs, has been placed in administration, the culmination of a rolling crisis under its Thai owner that highlights the fragile finances within the game.
The club, founded in 1867, has been under severe strain, with players and staff going unpaid several times in the past few months.
Owner Dejphon Chansiri was charged by the English Football League in June for failing to meet payment obligations, while the club, currently in the second-tier Championship league, was barred from signing new players. Fans have staged protests calling for Chansiri to sell the club.
Wednesday appointed Begbies Traynor as administrators on Friday morning.Kris Wigfield, joint administrator, said the club had been operating at a “significant loss for several years”, and that “due to increased financial pressure”, the owner had decided to place both the club and the stadium into administration to help facilitate a sale.
While most football clubs lose money, those in the Championship have particularly strained finances as ambitious owners spend huge sums in a bid to reach the Premier League. In the 2023-24 season, the division’s 24 clubs reported combined operating losses of £411mn, according to figures from Deloitte. Net debt grew to £1.5bn, while 12 clubs received equity injections from their owners totalling £554mn. Wednesday reported an operating loss of £9.3mn.
Wednesday, sitting at the bottom of the Championship, now face the prospect of a 12-point penalty, making relegation from the league all but certain. Despite the club’s plight, average attendance at Wednesday’s matches last season was above 26,000, more than that of many Premier League teams.
This season, however, turnout has dropped in part because the club was forced to shut a section of its stadium due to safety concerns. Hillsborough was once one of the UK’s top football venues and hosted several matches during Euro 96. Fans have also boycotted matches.
Wednesday and the EFL did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The club was acquired by Chansiri, whose family controls the world’s largest producer of tinned tuna, in 2015. He initially pumped in money in pursuit of promotion to the Premier League — the team reached but lost the play-off final in 2016. Performances then worsened, and Wednesday were relegated to League One in 2021 before returning to the Championship in 2023.
The Sheffield Wednesday Supporters Trust said administration was “not something to be celebrated”, but marked a “necessary turning point”.
“Entering administration was the inevitable outcome of years of financial mismanagement, a lack of accountability, and repeated failures to engage credible buyers,” the trust said. “But we are overjoyed to have Dejphon Chansiri out of our club for good.”
Wednesday’s ordeal is another high-profile sign of the fragile finances in football. While Portsmouth became the first Premier League club to enter administration, in 2010, administration is more common outside of the top flight, with the likes of Bury, Derby County and Wigan all having entered administration in recent years.
In an attempt to improve the supervision of clubs and their financial stability, the UK government this year set out plans to establish a football regulator, chaired by former media executive David Kogan, that is preparing to take on supervision of the English game in the coming months.
A spokesperson for the regulator said it was “working closely with the government to bring forward our powers as quickly as possible, to be in a position to take action against owners and directors who are not acting in the interests of their club”.
Culture secretary Lisa Nandy said: “Situations like this are exactly why this government set up the new independent football regulator. Owners should be good custodians who act with their club’s best interests in mind and clearly, in this instance, that has not been the case.”