‘Sheffield Wednesday need someone like Mike Ashley’ – Michael Vaughan | OneFootball

Michael Vaughan believes that ‘someone like Mike Ashley’ would be ideal for Sheffield Wednesday.

Having supported the Owls since being a kid, the former England Cricket Captain hoping for a new owner that can revive the club after the damage done by Dejphon Chansiri.

The truth is of course that whilst Chansiri might be the very worst that Sheffield Wednesday fans have experienced, the club has been mismanaged for a long time.

We have of course been here a number of times previously, when clubs such as Derby County, Coventry City and others have been on their knees, those in the media and indeed many fans of these clubs, wanting to believe that Mike Ashley is the answer to their hopes, rather than the stuff of nightmares.

Mike Ashley hasn’t carried through and bought any of these ailing clubs since he left Newcastle United on 7 October 2021, but like he does so often with ailing retail brands/companies that are on their knees and can be picked up as a potential bargain, it does appear clear that Ashley has shown interest in at least a couple of these desperate lower league clubs in recent years.

BBC Sport have reported this morning (see below) that Sheffield Wednesday’s administrators have confirmed there is interest from a number of potential new owners, but they are unnamed and whether Mike Ashley is amongst them, is an unknown.

Sheffield Wednesday fan Michael Vaughan declaring; “Every fan, myself included, is hopeful someone has the vision. I wouldn’t mind a Mike Ashley-style owner. People criticise him but I look enviously at where Newcastle are now, so you never know.”

It is beyond bizarre, to Newcastle United fans anyway, that Michael Vaughan somehow thinks that Newcastle United competing at the top, winning a trophy, playing Champions League football, is somehow something that Mike Ashley can take part of the credit for.

He had relegated Newcastle United twice in 12 Premier League seasons under his ownership and NUFC were relegation certainties after kicking off in the 13th PL season under Mike Ashley and making a disastrous start, until Eddie Howe and the new Newcastle United owners saved us from Ashley and Steve Bruce.

Sheffield Wednesday are a club with a large excellent fanbase and a great history but one that has spent the last quarter of a century struggling in the lower leagues, since relegated from the Premier League in 2000.

Mike Ashley took over a Newcastle United that had a full 52,000+ stadium every Premier League home match, that in 14 Premier League seasons had played European football most years, had got to cup finals during that time, had finished Premier League runners up twice and had finished top seven in the PL in eight of the fourteen seasons.

In the 15 seasons that NUFC kicked off under Mike Ashley, as well as the two relegations (and a third one looking a certainty), Newcastle finished higher than tenth in the Premier League once, didn’t even get as far as a cup semi-final, instead the football club just crawling from one season to the next and Mike Ashley sucking all the life and benefits from Newcastle United to enrich himself and provide free promotion of his retail businesses.

A new ambitious owner who would inject some extra cash and expertise to help ensure Newcastle United would be regular contenders towards the top end, was something that was maybe needed back in 2007.

However, Mike Ashley was the exact opposite of that!

Of course when you are in the position that fans of Derby, Coventry and Sheffield Wednesday found/find themselves in, it is understandable that a drowning man or woman will look at any lifeline as potentially saving them.

The thing is though, Newcastle United fans and their football club didn’t need saving back in 2007, we just needed somebody willing to invest and who could steer the ship even more accurately towards the success we all know our club is capable of. Instead, we got Mike Ashley and he threw us and our club overboard, where we had to tread water (or worse) for a decade and a half before we were rescued from him.

Michael Vaughan speaking to The Telegraph:

Administration might be the best thing to happen to our great club because it offers the chance of a fresh start under an owner with vision.”

“It needs a huge amount of money, investment to redevelop the training ground, the stadium and the playing squad. Every fan, myself included, is hopeful someone has the vision. I wouldn’t mind a Mike Ashley-style owner. People criticise him but I look enviously at where Newcastle are now, so you never know.”

“I feel for owners sometimes because fans expect them to keep pouring money in. But we should be a good club to invest in. We will always create revenue because we get 20,000 fans in every week. If they consistently do well in the Championship or dare I say it get back to the Premier League, there’ll be 35,000.

I look at another North East club, Sunderland, as inspiration. They have been through the mire but are back in the Premier League. We are a similar style club to Sunderland. It will take time and money, but there is some hope because of the fanbase, the history, and great city.”

BBC Sport report – 27 October 2025:

‘Sheffield Wednesday’s joint administrator says they have “four or five” serious bidders and the club could have new owners by the end of the year.

Kris Wigfield is leading the search for new ownership after Dejphon Chansiri put the Championship club into administration on Friday.

Wigfield says the Owls have to remain on the market for 28 days under EFL rules and claims they have already received concrete interest.

He told BBC 5 Live’s Wake Up to Money programme he hopes the new owners are in place to sign new players in the January transfer window.

Wigfield said: “As always, you get a lot of interested parties that probably aren’t going to meet the criteria, but within the numerous inquiries we’ve had, we certainly think that there are already four or five interested parties that look like the real deal.

“There are two criteria that new owners basically need to satisfy to then open dialogue and there to be an opportunity where they can make an offer.

“The first thing is they need to show the administrators that they could make the football club viable. So they’ve got to show that they’ve got sufficient funds to be able to fund it for the next few years.