Who is John McEvoy the US billionaire eyeing Sheffield Wednesday takeover? | OneFootball

Now they're in administration, Sheffield Wednesday are attracting the interest of bidders, and one of them is not a familiar name in English football.

Now that they're in administration, potential bidders are starting to declare an interest in Sheffield Wednesday. But one of them isn't a familiar name to English football fans, so here's what you need to know about John McEvoy.

It says something for the ownership of Dejphon Chansiri that there was so much relief among Sheffield Wednesday fans when the club was put into administration, taking it out of his direct control. And this means that the club will be sold.

Regardless of their enfeebled state in recent years, Sheffield Wednesday are an attractive option for potential buyers. Hillsborough is the biggest stadium in the EFL and the club has a massive fan base. The potential is clearly there to build the club into Premier League mainstays.

The administrators have already confirmed that there are four or five potential "serious" buyers for the club. The speculation surrounding this has so far included some familiar names, including former Crystal Palace minority shareholder John Textor and former Newcastle United owner Mike Ashley. But one of the names that has been mentioned is one that will be less familiar to English fans.

This isn't the first time that John McEvoy has expressed an interest in a Championship club

The Daily Telegraph's Mike Keegan reported on Tuesday that one interested party is the American billionaire John McEvoy. They reported that McEvoy has connections to Sheffield through his shareholding in the talent management agency Various Artists, and that he'd consulted with one of the lead singers of a band represented by them about this.

That band was the Sheffield-formed Reverend & The Makers, and their singer, John McClure, is a high-profile Sheffield Wednesday fan. McEvoy had previously posted to the social media platform X about his relief at the news that the club was being put into administration, following that up with a photograph of his seat at Hillsborough for their match against Oxford United.

This wouldn't be the first time that John McEvoy has expressed an interest in buying into English football. In 2022, he was briefly linked with a possible purchase of Coventry City. That didn't come to anything, but his interest in Sheffield Wednesday could amount to something more substantial.

McEvoy already has a business interest in sport

John McEvoy is based in California, and like many billionaires he has his fingers in several pies. His business interests include The Mobile Solution, a mobile device distribution company in San Diego, as well as a property development business which has property interests across the United States.

This extends to an interest in sport, holding minority stakes in the US National Hockey League team Nashville Predators and Major League Baseball team Colorado Rockies. And his interest in Sheffield Wednesday isn't quite sudden as it may appear on the surface. The Telegraph's reporting confirmed that, "McEvoy is understood to have been weighing up a bid for Wednesday for months."

That no interest in the club from him has been reported until now says something profound about the last few months of Dejphon Chansiri's time running Sheffield Wednesday. Bids for the club from elsewhere were refused by the club earlier in the year, and the very fact that his name has come to light now may speak volumes for the extent to which selling the club with Chansiri still at the wheel was unrealistic.

It was clear from the former owner's reported attempts to seek outside investment to prop up his ownership of the club that he didn't want to sell the club, and there was a strong possibility that this very intransigence could be the matter that pushed the club towards closure.

In the end, though, some degree of common sense prevailed and, although Sheffield Wednesday aren't quite out of the woods yet - there's a lot that can go wrong during administration and Wednesday could yet fail altogether - the events of the last few days have demonstrated that there is a pathway through which the club can be rescued and propped back up on its feet.

And if nothing else, Sheffield Wednesday fans seem united on one key matter; regardless of what the next few months holds for them, they can't be as bad as the last few. It's now down to the administrators to make the right decision for the long-term security of one of English football's grandest old institutions.