Dejphon Chansiri sparks fresh backlash after Sheffield Wednesday U-Turn - he'll never "do the right thing" | OneFootball

Dejphon Chansiri could be open to negotiations with the Storches over loans made to Sheffield Wednesday, but FLW's fan pundit is unconvinced.

The soon-to-be former Sheffield Wednesday owner is said to be open to negotiation with his prospective successor, David Storch, about the money owed to him by the club.

As the 2025-26 season heads towards its end, Sheffield Wednesday fans will be glad to see the back of it, but the matter of what their 2026-27 season might look like remains an open question. The protracted takeover of the club, which has now been going on for almost six months, isn't quite over the line yet.

Because Sheffield Wednesday have been in administration since the end of October, the EFL have strict rules about how to exit that legal process, and one of their key requirements is that unsecured creditors have to receive a minimum dividend of 25p in the pound from the sale, and that if this doesn't happen the club concerned will be docked 15 points for the start of the following season.

Wednesday have had two preferred bidders since being formally put up for sale. The first of those, led by the professional gambler James Bord, met that threshold, but after his bid collapsed in February, the second one from the Storch family's Arise Capital consortium, did not.

David Storch had been in negotiation with the EFL in the hope of getting this points deduction removed, but a statement that he released earlier in the week confirmed that the EFL are not allowing this. This leaves three options, if Storch is to proceed with the sale; increase the size of the bid, accept the points deduction, or try to get the amount of the club's debt lowered so that it meets that threshold.

"Immature and petulant" - Big Sheffield Wednesday doubts cast over Chansiri debt negotiations

Sheffield Wednesday's biggest creditor is soon-to-be former owner Dejphon Chansiri, and Storch's statement suggested that Chansiri had stonewalled attempts to have a conversation about what he's owed. But since that initial statement, further reporting has indicated that Chansiri could be open to negotiation after all.

With all of this in mind, Football League World have spoken to our Wednesday fan pundit Patrick McKenna about what he feels the outcome of such negotiations might be, but Patrick is not in the slightest bit optimistic that they will come to anything.

"I think this is something that will go absolutely nowhere," Patrick told FLW.

"As shown over the years, Dejphon Chansiri is immature and petulant, and has absolutely no sense. He will not engage in any mature or reasonable negotiations.

"Instead, if you are negotiating with him, he will just make stupid demands, and ultimately talks, if they do happen, will be fruitless."

The basis for Patrick's argument on this matter is his experience of Chansiri's ten years of ownership at Hillsborough.

"I'm still to be convinced that he finally will sit down with David Storch's consortium and talk, but with Chansiri over the past ten years, nothing that he has done previously hints towards any sort of positive or fruitful negotiations," Patrick added.

"If Dejphon Chansiri had any shame or decency, he would completely drop his claim, meaning that those negotiations would be completely unnecessary, but he's never going to do the right thing for Sheffield Wednesday."

Dejphon Chansiri's history indicates that negotiating with him could prove difficult for David Storch

It was reported last summer that there was interest in buying Sheffield Wednesday, but this had stalled because of what were widely considered to be unreasonable demands made by Chansiri.

Two bids were reportedly made to buy the club by an American-based consortium last summer for £30 million and £40 million, only for both of them to be rejected by Chansiri, with the owner of the club calling the first of them "derisory". It was established that Chansiri was holding out for his valuation of the club, which he believed to be £100 million, but this was dismissed by football finance expert Kieran Maguire as being "naive."

Almost a year on from that, the rules of the game have changed completely. There were signs that the club could end up in administration by the end of the summer transfer window. Wages were already routinely being paid late by this time. But administration is a legal process, and all concerned are bound by its rules.

Chansiri will have lodged a claim for everything that he put into the club during his ten years of ownership, and legally he is entitled to that amount. No-one can force him to reduce it. But there is a strong case for saying that, given that the huge financial losses that the club ran up were ultimately his responsibility, he has a moral obligation to reduce that amount, if doing so can secure a fresh start for the club.

A 15-point deduction for the start of next season would be very damaging to the rebuilding process at Sheffield Wednesday. It wouldn't guarantee relegation from League One next season, but it would make the possibility of an automatic return to the Championship very difficult. And with a vast overhaul of the club's playing staff necessary at the end of this season, such a deduction may deter the very players that Wednesday need from joining the club.

The costs of such a points deduction may also have a more tangential effect upon the club. Supporters may be less likely to buy season tickets, should they believe that the club will be unsuccessful again next season, while the value of all commercial and sponsorship deals may also be negatively impacted by it. To put it another way, the imposition of a points deduction for next season would mean that while Sheffield Wednesday got a break with the past as a result of coming under new ownership, it wouldn't be a clean one.

Talks with the EFL have gone nowhere, and they were never likely to. There would be little point in them having such a rule as the 25p threshold in the first place if they buckle over it, and with the Independent Football Regulator taking over responsibility for this sort of matter from the 1st May, they do not want to be looking soft on this sort of thing at this particular moment in time.

But as has been seen before, Dejphon Chansiri's expectations have not always aligned with the reality of Sheffield Wednesday's situation, so Sheffield Wednesday fans can certainly be forgiven wondering what chance there is of anything meaningful coming from those that he has been said to be open to now.