How much money Dejphon Chansiri would have to pay if Sheffield Wednesday actually go bust | OneFootball

Should the worst happen and Sheffield Wednesday go to the wall, the club's former owner will be left with a very hefty bill to pay.

The former Sheffield Wednesday owner would be on the hook for a substantial amount of money, should efforts to save the club end in failure.

As the end of the 2025-26 season comes into view, the future of Sheffield Wednesday remains up in the air. The club have been in administration since the 24th October and, with one bid to buy the club having failed, there have been complications in getting the second one over the line as well.

The one common theme of the last twelve months of this club's existence has been just how bad the club's finances had become under the ownership of Dejphon Chansiri. As long ago as last summer, this could be seen in the first stories of distress to start emerging from the club, of urgent repair work that needed to be carried out on the North Stand at Hillsborough, and of wages being paid late.

The current delay in getting the second preferred bidders for the club, Arise Capital, over the line has been dealing with a potential points deduction. EFL rules require any club exiting administration to pay a minimum dividend of 25p in the pound to all creditors. The first bid for the club reached that threshold, but the Arise bid has not, and Mike Storch, who's leading the bid, has already confirmed that conversations with the League about getting that deduction commuted have come to nothing.

Dejphon Chansiri could be on the hook for £7.4 million, should Sheffield Wednesday fold

In terms of reaching that threshold, one alternative to increasing the amount of money paid by the new owners would be getting Chansiri, who is by far the club's biggest creditor, to reduce the size of his claim. Initially, it was reported that Chansiri had not replied to Arise efforts to negotiate over doing so, but there are other complications which also mean that the soon-to-be former owner won't want the club to go to the wall completely.

Journalist Alan Nixon has confirmed this morning on Patreon that a failure to complete a sale of the club could have significant ramifications for Chansiri himself. He reports that Dejphon Chansiri will have to pay a £7.4 million penalty if Sheffield Wednesday go under, because there is a secured loan for this amount that is secured against Hillsborough which would leave the Thai businessman personally liable in the event of the club being liquidated.

Nixon reports that Chansiri "was hoping for around £16 million" as a dividend from the sale of the club, but a failure to complete a sale would mean liquidation of the club and its assets. And in this worst-case scenario, not only would the former owner of the club not receive a dividend, but he would find himself out of pocket in terms of having to repay the money secured against Hillsborough itself.

The secured loan may give Arise Capital some leverage in Chansiri negotiations

In terms of any negotiations over reducing the size of his claim in Sheffield Wednesday's administration, Dejphon Chansiri has no legal obligation. Legally speaking, the money that he put into the club over his ten years of ownership was in the form of loans, making it repayable in full even though these loans were only necessary in the first place because of his own mismanagement of the club.

And while there is a perception that debts just can just 'disappear' in the event of insolvency, that's not always the case. Secured debts - those tied to assets, usually property - are excluded from insolvency processes and are required to be paid in full. The same goes, not uncontroversially, for football-related debts, though this is a matter of EFL and FA rules rather than the law.

This means that there is a negotiation position for the prospective new owners of the club to adopt. Should they withdraw from the bidding process altogether, there's every possibility that there will be no others and that the club would have to be liquidated. This would likely return a smaller dividend than exiting administration with an arrangement, and the extra liability for the secured debt would remain with Chansiri.

There has been talk among fans about not wanting Chansiri to claw back anything from the administration of Sheffield Wednesday, but this is an unrealistic ambition if the club is to be saved in its current form. But the position over the secured loan does give Arise Capital potential leverage in these negotiations. With a target deadline of the 1st May and the clock now ticking down, it may be their best chance of securing a clean slate for the club for next season without any points deductions.