The prospective new owners of Sheffield Wednesday have conducted a “summit meeting” with the club’s administrators as the target date for completing the sale of the club approaches.

Sheffield Wednesday’s future has been uncertain throughout the season, but the moment when the club’s future can begin is approaching.

The complicated affair, which began around the conclusion of last season with reports that the club’s workers were being paid late, has cast a long shadow over their season. Transfer embargoes sank any hopes manager Henrik Pedersen had of building a competitive Championship team, and points deductions for financial misdeeds and entering administration left the club with a negative points tally that has proven impossible to reverse.

However, after six months in administration and one failed bid, the club’s second preferred bidders set a deadline of May 1st for the sale to be completed, and they have now held a “summit meeting” with the club’s administrators, Begbies Traynor, amid ongoing speculation about future punishments for the start of next season and how they can be avoided.

Wednesday summit recognized as “a positive day” by club administration Wigfield.

On Thursday evening, journalist Alan Nixon confirmed on Patreon that a “summit meeting” had taken place between Arise Capital, the consortium formed by the father and son Storches, who are now preferred bidders for Sheffield Wednesday, and Begbies Traynor, the insolvency practitioners dealing with the administration.

Concerns had been raised about the possibility that this second bid would fail following a statement by David Storch addressing the 15-point deduction that the club could receive for the start of next season, as well as other challenges that the new owners will face once the sale is confirmed.

Nixon maintains, however, that the deal is “going ahead” and that these concerns were addressed during the meeting. He reports that one of the topics discussed was how to find a solution that would provide creditors with the 25p in the pound payout necessary by the EFL to avoid a 15-point deduction at the start of the following season.

The Storches had hoped that negotiations with the EFL would yield results in this regard, but this did not happen, so convincing former owner Dejphon Chansiri, the club’s largest creditor, to reduce the size of his claim is their best option for avoiding the threat of starting next season at a significant disadvantage in League One.

Following the event, administrator Kris Wigfield acknowledged on the social media site X that it had been “a positive day” and that “all parties [are] pulling in the same direction” regarding the sale.

There are still plenty of strong reasons to believe that the Sheffield Wednesday will be completed on May 1st.

The EFL’s outgoing administration guidelines have caused a wrench in the plans to sell Sheffield Wednesday to Arise Capital. These rules stipulate that teams who exit administration must pay all creditors a minimum payout of 25p in the pound or suffer a 15-point deduction for the next season. The club’s original preferred bidders, a syndicate led by professional gambler James Bord, met this criterion, but the Arise proposal has not.

It was previously believed that the club’s former owner, Dejphon Chansiri, had been ignoring attempts by the Storches to negotiate the amount of money owing him. If Chansiri reduces his claim sufficiently, the club could still reach the 25p dividend criteria. However, further reports contradicted this, indicating that Chansiri is willing to talk. He is under no legal responsibility to do so, but given that the money he is owed is for loans made to the club that fueled his own mismanagement of the organization, there is a strong case to be made that he has a moral obligation to do so.

Storch’s statement generated questions about whether his bid for the club would also be withdrawn. It covered most of the work that has to be done on the Hillsborough stadium itself. It is evident that there has been little to no renovation work done there in quite some time, and that urgent work must be done before the start of the next season. With the first-team squad also in need of a thorough rebuild, the club’s new owners will face significant expenses this year.

However, Kris Wigfield’s social media message will allay some anxieties. The timeframe for completing the sale was established for May 1st, in large part because this is when the Independent Football Regulator takes over management of this entire area from the EFL. Wigfield’s comments confirm that, while there is understandable trepidation surrounding this bid, and most Sheffield Wednesday fans won’t be able to breathe easy until the contracts are signed, there is still plenty of reason to be optimistic that a new future for the club will be delivered on time.