By Thai Newsroom Reporters
SHEFFIELD WEDNESDAY have been forecast as the first Championship side to be relegated at the end of the upcoming season primarily due to the Thai-owned football club’s unresolved financial crisis and ownership fiasco, according to an English football pundit.
Benjamin Bloom has predicted on his YouTube channel that the Owls would be the most likely among a total of 24 sides playing week in, week out in the Championship, the second tier of the English football system, to be destined for relegation to League 1 from where they were promoted four years ago, given the unsettled debt and delayed payment of wages which already have seen departure of senior players, let alone signings of new ones to add to their threadbare squad and the undeniable failure on the part of the Thai owner, namely Dejpon Chansiri, who had allegedly run the South Yorkshire side in shambles and mess since the last decade.
Bloom’s prediction of doom for Sheffield Wednesday which might possibly loom up as soon as the start of the 2025/2026 season scheduled for this weekend was by no means prejudiced or connoted sheer antagonism against Chansiri since a record 43% odds are currently given for the Owls relegation coupled with an initially-assessed 70% probability.
Sheffield Wednesday’s debacle were definitely resulting in a three-window transfer ban whilst Chansiri has yet to pay undisclosed sums of money owed in arrears to a few other football clubs, namely Brighton & Hove Albion, Norwich, Hull and Southampton, which had loaned their players to the Owls last season and see to it that this month’s wages for his players and staff will be paid in full and on time after he had failed to do so for three months so far this year.
To dramatise sustained frustrations and discontentment with the Thai owner, the Sheffield Wednesday Supporters Trust has called on all Owls fans and supporters en route to see the Owls’ first away game on Sunday playing Leicester City at King Power stadium to linger around outside until five minutes have passed after kick-off. One huge banner would be put on the away end saying “Chansiri Out” and another literally dangling from a rented airplane flying by, saying the same thing.
Notably, only few Owls fans and supporters would seriously anticipate a draw, let alone a win, playing the Foxes, the other Thai-owned Championship side who were just relegated last season from the Premier League, the top echelon of the English football system. Owls manager Henrik Pedersen and skipper Barry Bannan would be more than content to manage to get the season opener rolling after their players had recently declined to play a pre-season friendly at Burnley’s training ground.
Similar gestures of protest against the unwelcome Thai owner would probably be repeated next week when the Owls play their first home game against Stoke at Hillsborough stadium.
In the meantime, reports that American business tycoon John Textor has expressed interest in taking over the debt-ridden, poorly-administered Sheffield Wednesday from Chansiri hit the sports news headlines and raised oohs and aahs among Owls fans and supporters to some extent. But that could probably be an ephemeral phenomenon, given deeply-trenched speculation that the profiteering-minded Thai owner would not sell it up for any price below a 100 million pounds range despite the fact that he bought it for 37.5 million pounds in 2015.
Textor, the owner of the likes of Olympique Lyonnais, a Ligue 1 club in France, Botafogo, a top-tiered club in Brazil and RWDM Brussels, a second-tiered club in Belgium, would be unlikely to buy Sheffield Wednesday at such a steep price asked by Chansiri no matter how much the American would personally crave to take the helm of another “traditional English” football club after he reportedly sold his minority share in Crystal Palace, one of the 20 Premier League sides, for 190 million pounds.
CAPTIONS:
Top: Hillsborough stadium. Photo: Rex Features and published by BBC
First insert: The strength of feeling against Sheffield Wednesday owner Dejpon Chansiri is increasing among the club’s fanbase. Photo: Getty Images and published by BBC
Second insert: Dejpon Chansiri. Photo: Sky Sports
Third insert Sheffield Wednesday fans have conducted regular protests against Dejpon Chansiri’s ownership of the club. Photo: Getty Images and published by BBC
Front Page: Sheffield Wednesday signage. Photo: Molly Darlington/2025 Getty Images and published by Yahoo!Sports
Also read: Dejpon scrambles to sell the Owls as new Championship season looms
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