Ranking the top 8 most controversial owners in EFL Championship history | OneFootball

We ranked the top eight most controversial owners in Championship history.

With the new Championship season now just weeks away, teams from across the division will be hoping that this will be the year they achieve promotion to the Premier League.

As well as getting the opportunity to play among England's elite, winning promotion to the Premier League also brings huge financial rewards for a club, and last season's play-off final winners Sunderland are expected to receive a minimum of £200 million in extra income.

Given the riches on offer in the top flight, many Championship owners have spent big in their pursuit of promotion over the years, but in some cases, the gamble has backfired spectacularly and had devastating consequences for the club.

Unfortunately, as seen by the recent plight of the likes of Sheffield Wednesday, Reading and Morecambe, bad ownership is still a major problem in English football, and the new Independent Football Regulator, which will begin work later this year, will be hoping to prevent similar issues from occurring again in the future.

With ownership once again a hot topic in the world of football, we ranked the top eight most controversial owners in Championship history.

8 The Venky's - Blackburn Rovers

Blackburn Rovers were an established Premier League club when the Venky's completed their £23 million takeover in November 2010, but that stability was immediately shattered as they replaced popular manager Sam Allardyce with Steve Kean shortly after their arrival.

Rovers were relegated from the top flight in the Venky's first full season of ownership, and they even dropped into League One in 2017 before making an immediate return to the Championship the following year.

The Venky's are regularly the subject of protests from Blackburn supporters, who feel that they do not provide enough investment in the club or show enough ambition, and a host of managers have left Ewood Park in recent years after disagreements with the hierarchy, including Tony Mowbray, Jon Dahl Tomasson and John Eustace.

However, while the Venky's running of the club leaves a lot to be desired, Rovers have regularly been among the play-off contenders in the Championship over the past seven years, and they only missed out on a place in the top six by two points last season.

Hong Kong-based businessman Carson Yeung bought a 29% stake in Birmingham City in July 2007, and while the club won promotion back to the Premier League and lifted the EFL Cup in the subsequent few years, they were unable to sustain that level of success.

The Blues were relegated from the top flight in the same year as their EFL Cup victory, and as they struggled towards the bottom of the Championship, Yeung was jailed for six years by a Hong Kong court in March 2014 for money laundering.

With Yeung out of the picture, it was unclear for a long time who was actually in charge of Birmingham, and their fortunes continued to decline on the pitch as they pulled off a number of last-gasp escapes from relegation, while they were also hit with a nine-point deduction for breaching profit and sustainability rules in March 2019.

While BSHL still hold a 51% stake in the Blues, it is clear that Tom Wagner and Knighthead Capital Management have been in control of events at St Andrew's @ Knighthead Park since purchasing a 45.96% share of the club in 2023, and the Midlands outfit are now firmly back on an upward trajectory.

After a turbulent few years that saw the club enter administration and suffer relegation from the Championship following a 12-point deduction, it looked as though a bright new era was underway at Wigan Athletic after they were bought by Bahraini-funded group Phoenix 2021 Limited, who were headed by Talal Al-Hammad, in March 2021.

The early signs were all positive for the Latics as they stormed to the League One title in Al-Hammad's first full year of ownership, but financial problems began to emerge in the Championship, and they were immediately relegated back to the third tier after being docked three points for failing to pay players and staff on time, with a further three points being taken off their total after the season had ended.

Wigan's off-field issues continued into the summer, and they began the 2023-24 season with an eight-point deduction due to further financial breaches, but thankfully for the Lancashire outfit, local businessman Mike Danson completed his takeover of the club before the start of the campaign, and stability has been restored at the Brick Community Stadium over the past two years.

Owen Oyston completed his takeover of Blackpool in 1987, and he appointed his son, Karl, as chairman 12 years later.

The Seasiders won promotion to the Premier League in the 2009-10 season, and they earned plenty of admirers for their valiant performances during their one-season stay in the top flight under Ian Holloway, but that would be as good as it got for the club under the ownership of the Oyston's.

After the Oyston's dramatically reduced their investment, Blackpool were relegated to League One in the 2014-15 campaign before dropping into League Two the following season, and while they did return to the third tier at the first attempt, relations between supporters and the owners were damaged beyond repair.

Tangerines supporters stayed away from Bloomfield Road for years in protest against the Oyston's, and after numerous legal battles, their 32-year tenure finally came to an end in June 2019 when Simon Sadler bought the club out of receivership.

Ken Anderson first bought a stake in Bolton Wanderers alongside Dean Holdsworth in 2016 before taking full control of the club the following year.

It would not be long until the Trotters fell into serious financial difficulty under Anderson, and the club were issued with two winding-up orders on their way to relegation from the Championship in the 2018-19 season, while their penultimate game of the campaign against Brentford was cancelled as players refused to play due to unpaid wages.

Wanderers were placed in administration in the summer of 2019 due to an unpaid tax bill of £1.2 million, which resulted in them being hit with a 12-point deduction ahead of the 2019-20 season, and after the proposed takeover by Football Ventures collapsed, the club were just hours away from being thrown out of the EFL, along with fellow League One side Bury.

However, while the Shakers could not be saved, Football Ventures did eventually complete their takeover of Bolton, and after making strong progress with chairman Sharon Brittan at the helm, the club are now aiming to return to the Championship.

3 Dejphon Chansiri - Sheffield Wednesday

Dejphon Chansiri bought Sheffield Wednesday from Milan Mandaric for £37.5 million back in January 2015, and after investing heavily in an attempt to achieve his target of reaching the Premier League within his first two years of ownership, he came agonisingly close to achieving that goal as the club suffered back-to-back play-off defeats under Carlos Carvalhal.

However, after falling short of his self-imposed objective, Chansiri has lacked any kind of plan to take the Owls forward since then, and the club were hit with a 12-point deduction ahead of the 2020-21 season for breaking spending rules, which, despite later being reduced to six after a successful appeal, saw them relegated to League One.

Wednesday were promoted back to the Championship in 2023, but after recording a respectable 12th-placed finish last season, it has been a summer of chaos at Hillsborough, which started when Chansiri failed to pay the wages of players and staff on time in May and June.

Chansiri has now paid the outstanding salaries, but he was forced to sell star duo Anthony Musaba and Djeidi Gassama for a combined total of just £3 million to raise the funds needed to meet his financial obligations, while forwards Josh Windass and Michael Smith's contracts have been terminated by mutual consent after they handed in their notices.

As they continue to deal with the consequences of Chansiri's mismanagement, the Owls have been hit with a three-window ban on paying transfer fees, and after the club's proposed takeover by an unnamed party fell through, things could get worse before they get better for the troubled South Yorkshire outfit.

Dai Yongge completed his takeover of Reading in May 2017, and he spent big in the early years of his ownership, including splashing out reported £7.5 million fees on both Sone Aluko and George Puscas, as well as overseeing the development of the club's state-of-the-art Bearwood Park training ground.

However, Yongge's spending did not result in the success he would have hoped for on the pitch, and as he gradually began to lose interest in events at the Select Car Leasing Stadium, the Royals were plunged into serious financial trouble.

During Yongge's tenure, Reading were relegated to League One, had a total of 18 points deducted and were placed under multiple transfer embargoes among a host of other off-field issues, and the Chinese businessman was disqualified by the EFL in March and ordered to sell the club.

With the Royals facing the threat of expulsion from the EFL, Yongge's disastrous tenure finally came to an end when he sold the club to former Wycombe Wanderers owner Rob Couhig in May, much to the relief of the club's long-suffering fan base.

Lifelong Derby County fan Mel Morris initially bought a 22% stake in the club in May 2014 before assuming full control the following year.

Like many owners on this list, Morris' time at Pride Park followed a familiar pattern, and after significant investment in the squad, the Rams came close to promotion to the Premier League on a number of occasions, most notably in the 2018-19 season, when they were beaten by Aston Villa in the play-off final at Wembley.

However, the big spending would soon catch up with Morris, and after two unsuccessful takeover attempts, Derby went into administration in September 2021, which resulted in a 12-point deduction, with a further nine points taken away for other financial irregularities.

After being relegated to League One, the Rams' future was hanging in the balance until local businessman David Clowes bought the club, and he later revealed that they would have gone bust within a week had he not intervened.