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If we’ve learned one thing this summer, it’s that Dejphon Chansiri is not the easiest person to work with, but new stories have come to light highlighting just how unusual things are behind the scenes at Sheffield Wednesday.
It’s now been ten years since Dejphon Chansiri took over at Sheffield Wednesday, but instead of celebrating that milestone in style, the Owls chairman has overseen one of the worst years in the club’s history.
Financial issues have plunged the club into crisis, with transfer bans and a player exodus, and the prospect of potential points deductions still to come.
While the Independent Football Regulator might oust Chansiri once it becomes operational later this year, the fans are just going to have to put up with the controversial owner for a little while longer.
Dejphon Chansiri requested change to River Don
The Wednesday players have managed to find resilience and togetherness among the chaos, but it sounds like people behind the scenes at the club have been dealing with bizarre situations for quite some time.
According to a report from The Times, Chansiri has a tendency to do things a little differently, including the use of feng shui to change the layout of the Sheffield Wednesday buildings.
It’s said Chansiri was keen to alter his surroundings to harness a “natural energy flow” but this even stretched as far as wanting someone to change the flow of the nearby River Don.
Apparently, Chansiri was “unhappy with the direction of the flow” of the river, which runs adjacent to the Hillsborough stadium, and he even asked his staff if they could find a way to change that. It seems this particular situation was “dismissed as jest” by insiders close to the club.
Based on what we know about Chansiri, including the way he dismissed questions from local MPs and how he’s navigated the whole takeover process in a bizarre manner, none of this is particularly surprising.
Dejphon Chansiri’s special guest
Still, it sounds like Chansiri is really friendly with people sometimes, it just depends who they are. The report adds that the Owls chairman once discovered someone on an ancestry website who was a “distant descendant of the Thai royal family.”
Believing this London-based person could bring the club good luck, Chansiri would “regularly invite” him to watch games in the directors’ box at Hillsborough.
Speaking of invites, the Sheffield Wednesday Supporters’ Trust has asked Chansiri to invite local reporters to the upcoming engagement panel to allow for more transparency. We’ll wait and see if that request is heeded.
Meanwhile, you’re unlikely to see Chansiri and his lucky friend at Hillsborough any time soon. In fact, you’re unlikely to see many people at the historic ground, with Owls fans planning further protests against Chansiri in the coming weeks.