Positive Sheffield Wednesday takeover update emerges - new Hillsborough era looms | OneFootball

There may finally be movement on the protracted sale of Sheffield Wednesday, some much-needed good news for a club that's been in crisis for too long.

There may finally be some good news coming for Sheffield Wednesday fans, with reports that the takeover of the club could soon be completed.

With a 3-1 defeat at Hull City having registered their 33rd consecutive Championship match without a win, Sheffield Wednesday fans are easily forgiven wanting the 2025-26 season to be over as soon as possible.

The team was mathematically relegated from the division at the end of February and, still on a negative points tally as a result of points deductions over their financial position, it seems likely that they'll set a record low in the 136 years of the EFL by the end of the season.

But matters on the pitch have almost taken a back seat to the ongoing saga of the club's future.

Having been put into administration at the end of October, the club's rescue from insolvency has proved to be extremely tricky indeed.

With the original preferred bidders for the club having pulled out of the race to buy the club, questions over a potential points deduction for the start of next season and the impact that this could have on the second group to have emerged as front-runners to buy this ailing club.

"There is believed to be positivity" over talks concerning the takeover of Sheffield Wednesday

There could finally be some good news on the horizon for Sheffield Wednesday supporters this morning, though, with reports from the Sheffield Star that the purchase of the club by Arise, a consortium formed by the American Storch family, could be moving in a positive direction.

They report that "there is believed to be positivity" concerning the takeover of the club. It had previously been indicated that the EFL could be seeking to enforce a 15-point deduction on the club, in the event that the bid to buy Sheffield Wednesday doesn't pay unsecured creditors 25p in the pound of what they are owed.

There had also been concern over reports that the League could be putting in place a severe limitation on wages at Hillsborough next season, with a £7,000-a-week cap on wages and a total cap of £7 million for the 2026-27 season.

But the Star report that they have been "led to believe that talks have continued to go well, and that things have been moving in a ‘positive’ direction", which opens the possibility of the fans' waking nightmare finally coming to an end.

They also confirm that passing the EFL’s Owners’ and Directors’ Test, which turned out to be a major sticking point with the former preferred bid made by a consortium fronted by professional gambler James Bord, will not be the issue that it was before, "with the consortium having moved swiftly to supply documents and information in an attempt to expedite the process."

A wage cap and points deduction double-whammy would be seriously damaging for Sheffield Wednesday

Both the talk of a wage cap and of a potential points deduction have threatened to become major issues with regard to Arise completing their purchase of Sheffield Wednesday.

The issue of the points deduction has been well-known for a long time because it's in the EFL's rules. The League require any club exiting administration through being sold to do so with an agreement that pays unsecured creditors a minimum of 25p in the pound of what they're owed. The Bord bid more than covered that, but this hasn't been the case since the club had to be put back up for sale.

This was only compounded by talk of a wage cap for next season. £7 million a year sounds like a lot of money for League One, but it's worth considering that, according to Capology estimates for this season, such an amount would only have been the 9th-highest in the division. Add that to a 15-point deduction, and it starts to look a little as though Sheffield Wednesday could be being set up to fail next season, as well.

That these two possibilities could both be in place is an obvious disincentive for people to buy the club. It's not known what the outcome of these talks will be, but the very fact that there is "positivity" surrounding them is a change of tone from recent discourse, which has started to consider the possibility of liquidation as being very real indeed.

There are understandable reasons why these rules are in place. The reputation of the League was damaged by tiny offers being made to creditors for clubs in administration, which included small, local businesses and other organisations such as the St Johns Ambulance. No formal reason has been disclosed concerning the reasoning behind the wage cap, but it's reasonable to presume that the League want to see Wednesday further stabilising their financial position.

But no-one will benefit, should Arise pull out of talks to buy the club. Their bid far outstripped that made by the former Newcastle United owner Mike Ashley, and Ashley might be the only game in town, should Arise decide that the conditions for buying the club are too onerous to be involved with. And if Ashley were to decide not to go for a third time, the worst-case scenario of liquidation, with widespread redundancies and the loss of one of the most enduring names in the English game, would become a serious possibility.

It makes perfect sense for some degree of negotiation to be taking place over this. Saving Sheffield Wednesday as a going concern needs to remain the top priority of all concerned in this protracted takeover. Fans can at least be relieved that it seems as though there is positive movement towards getting this resolved once and for all.