Sheffield Wednesday: Dejphon Chansiri keeps quiet over £3.7m loan mystery | OneFootball

The soon-to-be former Sheffield Wednesday owner may have questions to answer over a big outstanding debt to an occasional football agent.

The soon-to-be former owner of Sheffield Wednesday may have questions to answer over a multi-million pound debt showing in the club's accounts, but so far he's elected to keep his counsel over the matter.

Of all the things that Sheffield Wednesday fans may have been hoping for from their club's collapse into administration, quite close to the top of the list may well be a greater understanding of what on earth was going on under the ownership of Dejphon Chansiri which led to them ending up in such a desperate position in the first place.

Wednesday were put into administration on the 24th October over financial issues that had been building for months, with the club's players and staff repeatedly getting paid late, in contravention of EFL rules. Part of the administrators' duties is to go into detail with regard to the club's accounts, and one debt which has thrown up quizzical looks has led to questions being asked of the soon-to-be former owner which he has elected not to answer.

Questions over £3.7 million debt showing on accounts have not yet been answered by Dejphon Chansiri

The Sheffield Star report that, according to the creditors' report produced as part of the administration process, £3,785,243 was owed to one Luis Alves, who was registered as an agent in Portugal during the 2023-24 season and is registered as one again this season, although there is nothing to suggest that he was registered as one throughout the 2024-25 season.

The Star confirmed that Alves was "the lead intermediary" for two deals which led to players going to Hillsborough, though these were some years apart. The first was for Marcos Matias, who signed for the club in July 2015 - six months after Chansiri's takeover of the club was completed - and he stayed until 2019, making 72 appearances for Wednesday throughout an injury-plagued spell with them before returning to CD Nacional, the club from whom they'd signed him in the first place.

The second of these players was Momo Diaby, who arrived on loan from another Portuguese club, Portimonense, in the summer of 2023, with an option to buy. He made just 11 appearances for Wednesday throughout an injury-disrupted 2023-24 season, which resulted in the club not taking up that option.

There doesn't seem to be any clear reason why a club should have been taking loans from an agent, although the Star do clarify that "it should be stressed that it is not clear whether Alves was acting as a registered agent at the time the money was leant", and that the matter of whether clubs should be accepting loans from agents "could be something of a regulatory grey area." They also confirmed that Chansiri had not responded to requests for comment on this unusual state of affairs.

£3.7 million loan is a reminder of how chaotic and opaque things at Hillsborough were under Chansiri

As licensed insolvency practitioners, Begbies Traynor have a legal obligation to go through the last three years of accounts of any business that ends up in administration. Before they can move forward with agreeing a buyer for a new club, they have to ensure that any monies are lawfully owed.

The £3.7 million debt run up to Luis Alves is certainly a bit of a mystery. Before we even consider whether loans from agents - who may or may not be registered - are permitted, the question of how the club could end up owing so much money to an agent in the first place is a very open question indeed.

Even in the event that there is something improper about the transactions related to this debt, there's little likelihood that Chansiri would be subject to any further sanctions, except in the unlikely event that administrators established that criminal activity had taken place, and there's nothing to indicate that this has happened in this case.

The former owner has already been, as per the Star's reporting, ‘prohibited from being an owner or director of any EFL Club for a period of three years’ over his role in the club's financial collapse. The Star also reported that Begbie's Traynor have already reported this matter to the Football Association.

Sheffield Wednesday fans will not be surprised at having learned that the financial situation at Hillsborough prior to the club entering into administration was chaotic. It remains the case that the club will, in the long-term, end up in a far better position under new ownership than they were for many years under their disgraced former owner.