Dejphon Chansiri poised to lose £56m-plus as Sheffield Wednesday takeover by NFL billionaire mooted

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Sheffield Wednesday owner Dejphon Chansiri’s rhetoric in recent years suggests he didn’t know what he was in for when he bought the Championship club for £37.5m.

The motivations of millionaire or billionaire investors buying EFL clubs are often opaque. For some, it’s fulfilling a fantasy. For others, it’s hard-nosed capital appreciation.

If it’s the latter, you’re playing a dangerous game in the Championship, where the numbers simply don’t add up and clubs subsist on a diet of owner handouts and crumbs from the Michelin star meal that is Premier League solidarity payments.

Exactly what Dejphon Chansiri wanted with his takeover of Sheffield Wednesday in 2015 isn’t clear. What is crystal clear, however, is that he hasn’t achieved whatever it was he set out to do.

Early doors, the signs were relatively positive. The Thai businessman saw Wednesday beaten in the Championship play-off final in the first full season under his ownership.

The following season, the Owls finished 4th but defeat to Huddersfield Town in the semi-finals denied them a second trip to Wembley under Chansiri.

Then followed a few seasons of mid-table stasis before relegation in 2020-21, which was the result of a six-point deduction for breaching Financial Fair Play rules.

They were promoted at the second attempt from League One and have since stabilised in the Championship once more – or, at least, that is what the league table suggests.

In reality, however, Sheffield Wednesday are anything but stable. Chansiri and the fanbase are perpetually at each other’s throats, with the owner’s go-to line in fan forums usually some variation of: ‘Think you could do better? I’d like to see you try.’

Add to that the uncertainty over Danny Rohl’s future and it’s a pretty pernicious state of affairs at Hillsborough at present.

The light at the end of the tunnel? A potential takeover.

Are billionaire Walton family really interested in buying Dejphon Chansiri out?

Several groups have previously been linked with buying Sheffield Wednesday, most notably a consortium led by Adam Shaw, a Sheffield-born, America-based businessman.

Shaw says those talks never really got going because Chansiri refused to sign an NDA. Chansiri, incidentally, has countered that by saying that Shaw, whose Shawminds mental health charity previously had a partnership with Wednesday, still owes the club money.

Now, rumours are flying around suggesting that the Walton-Penner family, who own the NFL franchise the Denver Broncos, have bid £100m for the club.

If that is accurate – and it’s a very big ‘if’ at this stage – it would mean Sheffield Wednesday would have comfortably the EFL’s richest owners, as well as some of the very richest in football.

The Walton family is worth in the region of £225bn, with most of their wealth coming from the Walmart supermarket chain, which is the world’s richest company by annual revenue.

It might also see Wednesday form something of an informal link with Arsenal given that their owner Stan Kroenke is married to Ann Walton.

• READ MORE: Sheffield Wednesday make decision on Barry Bannan’s future as contract deadline looms

Takeover analysis: How much are Sheffield Wednesday really worth?

In the haze of the Adam Shaw saga, there were some suggestions that Shaw was prepared to pay £250m for Wednesday and let Chansiri retain a 30 per cent stake, valuing the club at close to £350m.

It’s true that measuring the value of a football club – or, indeed, anything – is an art, not a science, but those were either wild, pie-in-the-sky numbers or there was a major miscommunication somewhere.

Chansiri would likely be delighted if he was able to recoup £100m for Wednesday.

Given that Sheffield United with better infrastructure, more valuable player assets and parachute payments went for something similar, even £100m seems steep.

As Chansiri himself has been at great pains to emphasise, he is currently plunging around £2m per month on average into the club to cover running costs. Without Premier League football which would itself require significant funds to achieve, you would be paying £100m for a money pit.

Even in the top flight, many football finance experts think that club valuations are a bubble. And when the price of a good surpasses its inherent value, bubbles burst.

Chansiri has already sunk £156m into the club in the last 10 years, excluding the fee he paid Milan Mandaric in 2015, meaning he will lose £56m on the deal at the very least all-told.

£61m of that has come in the form of loans to the club, all of which the owner will almost certainly have to write off if a sale materialises.

Meanwhile, the sale of the stadium to Chansiri in 2019 – which was an FFP dodge – valued it at £60m, but that was not a true reflection of its value. Any takeover would need to unite the club and its property assets under the same company again.

Sheffield Wednesday’s potential and underlying finances

The underlying numbers at Hillsborough, however, are promising. The phrase ‘sleeping giant’ is perhaps one you’ll read in the coming weeks and months if a takeover seems likely.

Wednesday had higher attendances than six Premier League clubs in the last financial. At £9m, matchday income was the sixth highest in the Championship. With a new owner and a spark of optimism, you can expect that figure to rise.

Commercial income is mid-table in Championship terms at £8.4m and actually fell compared to the last season in League One. However, Chansiri’s departure and a bit of TLC from a new owner could easily see them bump that up.

With a little more attention, it is likely they would be one of the biggest-earning non-parachute payment clubs.

• READ MORE: Sheffield Wednesday fans are in complete agreement as claim made on ‘messy’ Danny Rohl situation

Sheffield Wednesday’s summer transfer window: Takeover scenarios examined

Chansiri has peddled the line that Wednesday are close to the limit in terms of Financial Fair Play, or Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR), as it’s known these days.

Even a cursory look at the data, however, shows that isn’t the case. They lost £10m last season, which would give them leeway to lose another £31.5m across 2024-25 and 2025-26 without breaching PSR, and that’s before allowable expenses like academy, women’s team and infrastructure costs are factored in.

Their £10m loss in 2023-24 was actually one of the best financial performances in the division in terms of the bottom line, while their equally modest operating losses and modest transfer spending make it difficult to see how they could be anywhere near the line in terms of PSR.

They had a low wage bill and low wages-to-turnover ratio too. It may have bumped up a little bit this term, but not enough to eat significantly into their PSR headroom.

Cash flow and PSR are separate issues. With a new investor willing to back Rohl in the transfer market, they could be a force in the Championship.