Sheffield Wednesday tipped for "ugly fight" after recent Simon Jordan comments on Dejphon Chansiri | OneFootball

FLW's Sheffield Wednesday Fan Pundit believes the Independent Football Regulator will be forced to wrestle control of the club away from the Thai

This article is part of Football League World's 'Terrace Talk' series, which provides personal opinions from our FLW Fan Pundits regarding the latest breaking news, teams, players, managers, potential signings and more…

There is belief that at Sheffield Wednesday the Independent Football Regulator will be forced to wrestle control of the club away from owner Dejphon Chansiri.

This comes after former Crystal Palace owner Simon Jordan delivered a warning to Chansiri about the incoming Independent Football Regulator via talkSPORT.

Jordan claimed he understands the regulator will have the power to remove owners who fail to meet suitability standards, and suggested the Thai businessman could be forced out when it comes into effect later this year.

Created through the Football Governance Act of this year, the regulator has been granted huge powers to "protect and promote the sustainability of English football", which includes core objectives surrounding 'financial soundness' and 'financial resilience'.

Sheffield Wednesday "way past" any hope of Dejphon Chansiri selling the club fairly

FLW's Sheffield Wednesday Fan Pundit, Patrick McKenna, believes this potential intervention is the club's best hope for change, given Chansiri's unwillingness to engage in any meaningful sale.

"I think we are way past hoping that Chansiri is going to engage in any honest and fair process for selling the club," McKenna stated.

"It’s obvious that he doesn’t want to do this, and he is trying to hold on in absolutely ridiculous fashion. He’d rather try and sell gold than sell the club, which is just an insult to the whole fanbase," he added.

It's common knowledge now that the 57-year-old has acknowledged rejecting two previous offers to sell the club - valued at £40m and £30m, claiming he will only accept a deal that is "correct on all fronts".

However, supporters continue to be let down by his antics. With wages at the club being paid late for the fifth time in seven months, an EFL-imposed points deduction is due to be handed to the Owls.

McKenna continued by telling FLW: "During the summer maybe we got our hopes up thinking he was going to sell, but no, he clearly has no intention of doing so and they are people wanting to come forward and buy the club, but he is absolutely impossible to deal with."

The Fan Pundit pulled no punches in his assessment of Chansiri's tenure, which has seen the club accumulate huge losses, describing the owner's behaviour as spiteful.

"At this stage, and it has been for a while, there’s a level of spite in what Chansiri is doing. Even now he knows the value of the club is plummeting, he simply doesn’t care and he would rather he owns Sheffield Wednesday than anyone else.

"It’s really depressing that the EFL haven’t been able to take the club off him, so this new regulator are going to have to come in and pull it away from him by any means possible," McKenna added.

Furthermore, while the regulator provides some hope, the process of removing Chansiri is unlikely to be straightforward in McKenna's eyes.

According to The Athletic, the government has indicated the regulator will be fully operational by November, which gives Chansiri potentially just weeks to resolve the situation voluntarily.

"With that, things are just going to get more ugly because he is not willingly going to go at any stage. For a despairing fanbase, this is the next hope for us that he can be kicked out of the club and the club will have to go up for sale."

McKenna concluded by saying: "However, as a Wednesday fan, with this I'm not going to get carried away or pin my hopes that any process is going to be simple. It’s going to have to be a long, ugly fight to drag the club from him."

Sheffield Wednesday are perhaps highly likely to be an early test for the new regulator, then, given their financial situation seems to be worsening all the time.

The coming months will surely reveal whether an intervention in this manner can finally end Chansiri's ownership and provide the fresh start that Wednesday supporters, like McKenna, deserve.