How much Mike Ashley sold Newcastle United for - could he use it to buy Sheffield Wednesday? | OneFootball

The ex-Magpies owner is lurking in the shadows - and could potentially renew his interest in the Owls

The Sheffield Wednesday takeover saga took its biggest twist yet on February 25, with the news that James Bord had withdrawn from the running.

Since Christmas Eve 2025, Bord's consortium - which also included business partners Felix Romer and Alsharif Faisal Bin Jamil - have had the exclusivity rights to conclude a deal to take the stricken South Yorkshire club out of their administration process.

It's not uncommon for that to take a few months, but with more checks ongoing from the football authorities over Bord's finances, having come from a gambling and poker background, Owls fans were beginning to get frustrated about the lack of positive news.

And then the bomb dropped on February 25, which confirmed that Bord and co were no longer in the running to takeover at Hillsborough, citing the size of their offer could no longer be justified due to the 'mishandling of the club and pattern of catastrophic underinvestment' by previous owner Dejphon Chansiri.

It means Begbies Traynor are back to square one in needing to find a preferred bidder - could that be Mike Ashley.

Ashley has long been interested in the Owls, but his offer - which was reported to be in the £20 million region - prior to Bord's being accepted, wasn't the highest, and would've also triggered a 15-point deduction for Wednesday next season due to it not meeting the threshold to paying back creditors.

TalkSPORT's Alex Crook though reported earlier this week that former Newcastle United owner Ashley was 'waiting in the wings' to make a new offer if the Owls came up for buying again, and that has now happened.

How much Mike Ashley sold Newcastle United for in 2021

Ashley is a well-respected businessman with a Net Worth of $5.8 billion (as per Forbes), having made his fortune in the retail business, founding both Sports Direct and the Frasers Group.

That allowed him to purchase his boyhood club Newcastle United in 2007 for £134 million, despite doing no due diligence on the club or their accounts, and he would remain as owner for 14 years, where they'd suffer two relegations to the Championship in a somewhat turbulent era in the Magpies' history.

After a protracted saga though, Ashley finally sold up in 2021 to Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, Amanda Staveley and the Reuben Brothers - the deal was meant to be done in early 2020 but was called off due to a delay from the Premier League in communicating a decision on their suitability for ownership.

Issues were ironed out though, and in October 2021, the deal finally went through, with Ashley cashing in for £305 million - which represented a £169 million profit on his initial purchase, not taking into account year-on-year accounts for the club under his tenure.

Mike Ashley could be the best fit for Sheffield Wednesday at this current moment

Ashley's wealth of course is not just confined to the money he made from Newcastle's sale, and he's also had other footballing interests, such as at Rangers and when he owned Coventry City's CBS Arena complex, but he won't need to use that much of his net worth to get his hands on Sheffield Wednesday.

That's if he wants the troubled club of course, but all signs point towards the fact he does - and it seems like his initial bid for the club was more in the region of what it's actually worth, if Bord's words are to be believed.

What could happen now is a lower offer may now be submitted by Ashley to try and get a better understanding of where Wednesday's finances are at, but whatever the case, it's almost certain that the Owls will now start their League One 2026-27 campaign with a 15-point deduction.

They could be best placed though to do that under Ashley, who has a proven track record of making profit in business, but he could be challenged by other businesspeople for this particular distressed asset.