Issue emerges with American bid for Sheffield Wednesday after consortium statement | OneFootball

A State-side group have attempted to buy the Owls twice in the past two months.

One of the members of the American consortium that is trying to buy Sheffield Wednesday, John Flanagan, has admitted that he's not sure whether a deal for the club can be done.

Two bids from across the pond for the Championship club have been rejected by Thai owner Dejphon Chansiri. The first bid by the consortium was submitted in April but was promptly rejected and called "derisory" by a Wednesday spokesperson. An improved offer was then sent the following month, as per The Star, but it was the same story as the first proposal.

Wednesday are in the midst of a bit of a financial crisis. The club failed to fully pay the players, the coaches and other members of staff their May wages, with Chansiri resorting to contacting business associates to help him secure the necessary funds.

This is the second time such an event has happened in the last eight-to-nine weeks, but the first instance only affected the players. Wednesday came within one day of receiving a three-window-long transfer ban from the EFL as a result. Now they have been charged by the footballing body with "multiple breaches of EFL Regulations relating to payment obligations".

At this moment, on the morning of 4th June, nothing has been reported to suggest that these issues have been resolved.

American consortium not wholly confident in their chances of completing their Sheffield Wednesday takeover

Huge swathes of the club's supporters have called on the Thai businessman to finally sell the club after years of struggles. The American offers have presented hope of a brighter future, but Flanagan, the reported leader of the consortium, isn't certain that his group will be able to achieve their goal of becoming Wednesday's new owners.

He told Football Heaven: "I will say, to say it in the most respectful way possible, Mr Chansiri owns the team. It is his team and his club to sell at whatever price he decides he wants to sell it at. So to answer your question [about his confidence in being able to buy the club], I don't know.

"I'd love to think that there would be a way to get an agreement in place. I really do think that our group could be extremely beneficial to the club going forward, but it's been a unique situation, I will say, from the beginning.

"Even from the initial approach, we were pretty simple with our initial approach. It came via email. We sent him an email, we said 'Hey, we'd like to put in a potential offer to purchase the club' and we got a quick response that was, for all intents and purposes, no.

"Based on the conversations we had over the following couple of weeks, it was a similar thing. After having a meeting with the chairman himself, we're clearly not lining up on what the valuation of the club is. Some of the newer things that have come out about the club in recent times (late payments), obviously the value isn't going up.

"I would love to say that there is an opportunity and that we would take it over, but it's going to come down to whether or not he wants to sell, and whether we're the group or the individuals he wants to sell to."

Flanagan - a 36-year-old businessman whose success came from the real estate world - confirmed that the consortium is made up of business people, one of whom is reported to be Wednesday fan Adam Shaw, as well as current and former athletes, and owners of other sports teams.

He said that they were told, after their second offer was submitted, that what they were willing to spend would only get them a League One or League Two team. Flanagan believes that the offers made to Chansiri were of fair market value, but he understands that these things can be very fluid.

Sheffield Wednesday supporters should be concerned by latest consortium update

From what the 36-year-old said, there seems like quite a large gap between what Chansiri would be willing to sell for and what the consortium would currently pay for Wednesday.

The club can't continue on in its current fashion. Missed payments, an unhappy manager, a disgruntled fanbase; all of this could combine to produce a cocktail that could quickly sink Hillsborough back to being a League One club, or worse, under Chansiri.

The presence of the consortium at least offers some form of hope. It may, though, only turn out to be the copium that they provide, given their different stance on the club's valuation to that of the chairman.