Football finance expert Kieran Maguire gives his take on the current chaos at Sheffield Wednesday as we approach the 2025/26 season.
Kieran Maguire appeared on the Second Tier Podcast and expressed serious concerns about Sheffield Wednesday’s financial and operational instability, with the club facing issues with late wage payments and a potential three-window transfer embargo due to strained relations with the EFL.
This restricts them to signing only loan players and free agents, complicating their ability to compete in the Championship, where they already have one of the lower wage budgets.
Rumours suggest Chansiri may owe money secured against his investment in the club, meaning a lower sale price could leave him unable to repay lenders.
If true, and without new funds, the club could remain in limbo, losing out-of-contract players and struggling with a low wage bill, making it hard to compete in the Championship.
Maguire emphasises the club’s precarious position, with administration being the least desirable outcome due to its severe consequences for the club and its community.
“Chansiri was initially looking for £300 million” 🤯
“The last asking price I heard was £75 million” 🤔
“Sheffield Wednesday is not worth £75 million” 🤷♂️@KieranMaguire gives his take on the chaos at Sheffield Wednesday👇
🔗 https://t.co/3vX06CBCHW#SWFC pic.twitter.com/Rpb0JEDQZ1
— Second Tier podcast (@secondtierpod) June 29, 2025
Second Tier podcast host Ryan Dilks: “Well, we’ve had our nice positive start to the episode. Kieran, now it’s time to really bring down the tone by talking about Sheffield Wednesday.
“Now we’ve spoken about them a lot in recent weeks on the podcast, missed wage payments, rejected takeover bids, etc. We don’t need to go over all that again because we know where we’re standing.
“Well, I say we know where we’re standing. Sheffield Wednesday won’t say we don’t really, but we we’ve got a good idea of roughly where they are.
“And when we do this annual chat with you, we always seem to have a chance every section. Feel like this one might be slightly longer than usual. Kieran, how worried are you about Sheffield Wednesday?”
Kieran Maguire: “Yeah. Of all of the clubs in the Championship, they are the one which you have to watch the most in terms of the precarious position that they are in.
“Nobody knows where Chansiri gets his money from. But given that the club is late with wages, has messed around, has really annoyed the EFL as well, it’s looking at a three session transfer embargo, which is gonna make next year really tough.
“And they actually had one of the lower wage budgets in the Championship, in their first season when they returned.
“So they they’ve got two issues, a) making sure that they can pay the bills, and, b) how does this impact upon the summer?
“They effectively can only sign loan players and Bosmans, which is restricted. But we’ve seen clubs in previous years just about navigate their way through such choppy waters. But, yes, I am very concerned.
“Matt Slater of The Athletic, who is somebody who I hold in very high regard, he’s I think he’s put out an article saying that Milan Mandaric has tried to get involved, has effectively been shown that it’s not welcome.
“I’m aware that Chansiri was originally looking for in excess of £300million for Sheffield Wednesday.
“And when everybody stopped laughing because they thought, Dejphon, you’ve got zero at the end of that number, which I think you need probably need to remove.
“He reduced it then to a 150 million. I think the last asking price I heard was 75,000,000. Sheffield Wednesday is not worth £75million.
“The infrastructure in terms of what’s happened at Hillsborough, there’s not been enough investment there.
“So whoever acquires the club, assuming that somebody is going to acquire the club, has to spend money to make sure that it’s in a sufficiently satisfactory position, that you can play football there.
“Yes, they’ve got the potential of they’ve got a fantastic fan base in it, and that’s one of the big positives.
“And, yes, it’s a big city. But the club has been mismanaged for many years by somebody who, a) doesn’t understand football, and, b) is unwilling to take sensible advice.
“You you put those two elements together, and you’ve got the crisis club that we have at present. You’ve got players who are out of contract in a week.
“If those players haven’t been paid, their their May pay packet well, if you think they’re gonna sign a new contract with Sheffield Wednesday, I think you’re either very naive or your name’s Chansiri.”
Ryan Dilks: Yeah. Well, not too surprising there, I don’t think. But it seems to me from the reports that I’m seeing that, essentially, Chansiri is asking for too much money.
“There is a lot of interest in Wednesday, but Chansiri is asking he’s basically put a Premier League valuation on what is essentially a struggling Championship club.
“So what is the most likely outcome here in ending this saga? Is it just the waiting game for Chansiri to finally lower those demands?”
Kieran Maguire: Well, I think there are three potential outcomes. Outcome number one, he finds some money from a source. Now nobody’s known where his historic sources would be, but it could be that wherever he was generating money to fund the club, that tap, which appears to have been turned off, is once again turned back on.
“Option number two is, as you say, Ryan, he does come to his senses, and he agrees to drop the asking price. And under those circumstances, what I advise everybody to do is let him leave with a bit of dignity because I think he is an individual for, I’m not trying to be as polite as I can, for whom vanity is an issue.
“And what you don’t want to do is to chase him out of town. So, if it can be organised in such a way that he accepts a reasonable price, and in my opinion, a reasonable price would be sub £50million.
“They’re probably looking somewhere in the region of 40 to 50million, and you have to throw in Hillsborough with us, of course.
“And he then either writes off the loans, which are due to him, or they are bought in some form of earn out along the lines of if Sheffield Wednesday are promoted in the next five years, then if he’s he he doesn’t get any interest on his outstanding loans, but he’ll he’ll get some sort of payments should the club be successful. So that’s option number two.
“Option number three, and this is the the least palatable, is that he throws his toys out of the pram and puts the club into administration.
“And if that’s the case, it’s an immediate 12 penalty. It’s a potential further 15 penalty.
“If you come out of administration and you haven’t paid your unsecured creditors at least 25 pence in the pound, you’ve got people losing jobs, you’ve got footballers being used as commodities by the administrators, and you’ve got the cost of the administration itself.
“You know, what people talk about Derby County going into administration, what what they don’t tend to mention is that the the cost of the Derby County administration, by the time you added everything in, was was not shy of £4million.
“Well, that’s £4million that’s leaving football, and that’s local suppliers not getting paid, and that’s people losing their jobs, as well as the negative impact, of course, that it has on what what you’re seeing on the pitch because you can’t afford to recruit players and starting next season with the 12 points effectively on minus 12 points.”
Ryan Dilks: Yeah. I have seen some rumours, Kieran, that Chansiri just simply can’t afford to take a lower valuation than the one he’s putting forward. And if that’s the case, would that mean that Sheffield Wednesday just stuck in limbo for the foreseeable future? And how likely a case do you think that is?
Kieran Maguire: “Well, we don’t know enough details. And, yes, I have heard those stories effectively, something along the lines of Chansiri has borrowed money from people, and that money is secured on his investment in Sheffield Wednesday.
“And if he was to sell the club for, let’s say, £40-45million, that would give him insufficient resources to pay back his lenders, and his lenders would not be happy.
“Now that could be an internet conspiracy theory for all we know.
“So you have to be skeptical to a certain extent. I think in terms of keeping the club in limbo is that if he has no cash, we’ve got a problem because Sheffield Wednesday are losing a £150,000, £200,000 a week.
“So if he’s not got the the money to subsidise the club at those levels, then either the players that who who’s who are out of contract on the 30th of June, they they walk elsewhere, which I think there’s a fair chance that will happen.
“And you have to recruit players effectively on good League One wages to try to compete in the Championship.
“And Sheffield Wednesday already have the third or fourth lowest wage bill in the Championship, and they probably outperformed their position last season.”
Twitter users gave their reaction as football finance expert Kieran Maguire gives his take on the chaos at Sheffield Wednesday…
@UpTheRs: Genuinely feel for Sheff Wed, massive club in this league but will only go down with Chansiri in charge. Says alot that they’re the bigger Sheffield club but miles behind United. Think they’d have pushed for top 6 if Rohl was backed as the foundations were there
@MrPaulPashley: We (as a fanbase) are dealing with an unrealistic man child. He’s broken his toy and even if someone offered him £100 million now, I think he’d still refuse. The question is, WHY?
@mickyh01: He’s definitely taking them down with him. He don’t look the sort to walk away being prepared to lose lots and lots of money. And he’s gonna have to if that club survives
@therealtbailey: Brilliant as per usual @KieranMaguire thanks for being a regular voice on the goings on at our club. Can I ask though, when are the EFL going to step in and force him to sell. It’s utter lunacy all of this.
@__Danny_Collins: The EFL owners test is not fit for purpose. I’m of the opinion that fans should have a massive say in who should be allowed to own their football club in the lead up to someone buying their club. I think this would root out a lot of the Chansiri type c*nts who are chancers.
@ScottDicko1: One of the most prominent financial independent footballing experts in UK says it how it is @EFL @swfc someone somewhere needs to make something happen as our club is going to the knackers yard #swfc
@andymcelwaine: Today (Monday) could be the darkest day in my club’s history. Chansiri has run this club to the brink of the end. It’s appalling what’s happened and what’s happening. It’s so sad. #swfc
@cjdecorators: 😂 £300 million! If that one statement doesn’t prove how delusional chansiri is , nothing will. Really can’t see anyone being able to negotiate with him and takeover our club..seriously in danger of not surviving the next few weeks #swfc
You must be logged in to post a comment Login