Two bids are leading discussion about Sheffield Wednesday’s future, and one may have a significant advantage over the other.
Sheffield Wednesday’s next owners will be decided shortly. They were placed into administration on October 24th, and the club’s administrators, Begbie’s Traynor, have been administering the club on a daily basis since then, as well as soliciting bids to purchase the struggling Championship team.
They have not been short of suitors, either. Sheffield Wednesday, a former Premier League club, can draw audiences of more than 30,000. As a result, there is a wealth of potential that a new owner may uncover with the correct level of investment, combined with care and attention.
With both the team and the Hillsborough stadium in severe need of reconstruction, it will not be cheap to get this club back on track, but the potential returns are enormous, more than covering the price of purchasing it in the first place.
Even if the club only stays in the Premier League for one season, just getting there may be worth more than £220 million. This level of potential reward is probably one of the reasons why potential investors have shown such interest in EFL clubs.
Mike Ashley and an American consortium are among those bidding to purchase SheffIeld Wednesday.
Two of the top competitors cited in connection with the purchase of Sheffield Wednesday have been a proposal resulting from a merger between two American organizations interested in purchasing the club and British tycoon Mike Ashley.
The American bid is a collaboration between the Storch family, who were previously linked with potential investment in League One club Plymouth Argyle, and a group connected to entrepreneur and investor John McEvoy, who has ties to Sheffield through his stake in talent agency Various Artists and the Sheffield-based band Reverend & The Makers.
The other bid comes from a name that will be much more familiar to British football fans. Mike Ashley is the Frasers Group’s owner, and he has previously been involved in the game in this country by owning Newcastle United, as well as holding a minority stake in Scottish giants Rangers and previously owning the CBS Arena, home of Championship leaders Coventry City.
Ashley had already made a £20 million bid to purchase Sheffield Wednesday, which was apparently rejected by the administrators. However, new sources suggest that Ashley is contemplating a revised, bigger bid in order to gain ownership of the club.
Mike Ashley’s prior experience may give him an advantage over his American counterparts.
Running a football club is unlike running any other type of business, and many have fallen victim to this in the past. And Mike Ashley’s experience may offer him an advantage over the American consortium that is now competing with him.
Ashley was Newcastle United’s owner for 14 years, from 2007 to 2021, and while this period was not without its challenges and disruptions, the experience of having been there and done it for more than a decade may well impress the administrators when determining who is best positioned to move Sheffield Wednesday forward.
Newcastle fans were frequently critical of Ashley while he was in charge of the club, although he did maintain the club on a stable financial footing, as the club recognized in defense of Ashley after the owner was singled out for criticism by former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn in 2019.
Addressing the need for an independent football regulator in 2019, Corbyn stated in a video shared to social media site X: “A small handful of people are damaging our national game. Billionaire football club owners such as Mike Ashley, who owns Newcastle United Football Club.”
The club responded with a strongly worded statement defending Ashley’s record on Tyneside: “Financially, other than sums provided to the club on a short-term, interest-free basis and repaid to him as intended, we would like to make it clear that Mike Ashley has not taken a penny out of Newcastle United in interest, salary, or dividend, as is customary at many clubs.”
While Ashley’s record at Newcastle was spotty – the club was relegated to the Championship twice under his watch, but they returned immediately as champions on both occasions – his knowledge may be useful in getting Sheffield Wednesday back to where they could be.
The unique nature of the football industry may play a significant role in the decision-making process undertaken by the administrators, and while there is no doubt that the Storch family and John McEvoy have clearly been successful in business, they have yet to prove themselves in the singular challenge of running a football club.
Mike Ashley may not be a popular choice among fans, but resurrecting Sheffield Wednesday may require expertise. In that one potentially critical area, Ashley may have a huge advantage over his American competitors.
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