Sheffield Wednesday takeover: Will it happen by the end of 2025? | OneFootball

The Owls' long-term future still remains unknown after a period of continued Hillsborough discontent

Sheffield Wednesday - one of English football's most historic clubs - remain in the limelight for an array of extremely dark factors.

The Owls have resided outside the Premier League since the summer of 2000, with supporters at Hillsborough left longing for the days that their club will end its lengthy hiatus from the top division.

Less than a decade ago, it looked as if Dejphon Chansiri would be the man to bankroll the Steel City outfit back to such heights. Yet, fast-forward to the present, and the atmosphere among Wednesdayites couldn't be more apathetic if you tried, with the club's long-term future still under threat heading into the upcoming months of the 2025/26 season.

It has left many on the inside and outside believing that Henrik Pedersen has one of the hardest tasks seen in the EFL for many a year on his hands, with the Dane given hardly any resources to help preserve the club's Championship status for a fourth season in a row following the departure of Danny Rohl just days before the current campaign began.

And, although protests against the aforementioned Chansiri are growing stronger than ever before, it has begged the question: will a takeover in S6 take place sooner rather than later?

What we already know about Sheffield Wednesday's hopes of a takeover amid Chansiri controversy

Chansiri acquired the club for a reported £30m in 2015 from Milan Mandaric, targeting a swift return to the Premier League in the process.

As good as it got for the Thai native were two unsuccessful play-off campaigns, with defeats to Hull City and Huddersfield Town coming in the 2016 final and 2017 semi-finals respectively. Since then, the purse strings have well and truly been tightened.

The 2020/21 season proved to be Chansiri's first major downfall, with the club hit with a 12-point deduction after breaching spending rules, subsequently being relegated to League One for the first time since 2013.

Following a tumultuous period in which supporters still demanded the Owls owner leave his post as chairman, it was first revealed in April that players and staff had not been paid wages for the month of March in the required timeframe - a predicament which rumbled on to the point a mass exodus of players on cut-price deals and the handing of leave notices took place this summer, with Rohl departing nine days before the start of the current campaign too.

As such, Pedersen has only been able to make two loan signings in the form of Ethan Horvath and Harry Amass whilst the club are now under three embargoes - significantly impacting player registrations and transfer dealings - whilst the club have until Tuesday, September 30th to repay a £7.3m loan, or else they face the damning threat of administration and a likely points deduction.

Yet whilst supporters have made their feelings known with mass boycotts of EFL Cup encounters against Leeds United and Grimsby Town and the 'Black and Gold until its sold' campaign, is a takeover in the offing anytime soon?

Sheffield Wednesday takeover prospects debated amid £100m Dejphon Chansiri valuation claims

Although Wednesday remain English football's largest 'sleeping giant' at present, many have argued that Chansiri's valuation of the club, which is reportedly in the region of £100m, is beyond obscene.

The likes of former Crystal Palace stakeholder, John Textor, who has also made headlines for his own controversies, continue to hold an interest in buying the club, although whether he or rival consortiums can accumulate such funds remains to be seen.

At present, Chansiri looks very unlikely to shift the goalposts with regard to his valuation, meaning that the only potential way a takeover could be resolved is through the recent 'Football Governance Bill', in which an independent regulator can hold the power to oust figures such as the Asian to relinquish control of clubs.

“The regulator will of course have the power to disqualify as well. But where it goes forward is that, while the EFL doesn’t have certain powers, the regulator will be able to order owners to sell clubs, within a defined timescale. And if they’re not meeting that commitment, then the regulator will be able to appoint a trustee to go in and run the club," EFL chairman Rick Parry recently stated.

Owls captain Barry Bannan revealed there has been a distinct lack of communication between the hierarchy and even the players at Hillsborough, which only adds to the negative atmosphere despite a respectable run of performances and results on the pitch.

A 12-point deduction for potentially entering administration would only push Wednesday further to an expected relegation. Yet, whilst survival against all odds is very much the end goal for those on the pitch, supporters will be hoping that their club can start fresh with a new owner in the coming weeks and months, even if it means falling back into League One to take major steps forward.