The Storch Family plot Sheffield Wednesday takeover - 4 other EFL clubs nearly had their involvement | OneFootball

The Storch Family are in the final three in the race to for Wednesday, but this isn't the only time they've expressed an interest in British clubs.

The Storch Family are in the final three in the race to buy Sheffield Wednesday, but this is far from the only time that they've expressed an interest in buying into a British football club.

The time is now rapidly approaching when the preferred bidder in the race to buy Sheffield Wednesday is announced. The decision has already been delayed, and Wednesday fans can reflect that the fact that this announcement has already been held up should be a good sign that the administrators, Begbie's Traynor, are doing everything they can to ensure that the right decision is made.

One of the three remaining candidates to buy the club is understood to be a consortium made up of the entrepreneur and investor John McEvoy and the Storch family. The merger of these two bids is understood to have been one of the big reasons why the entire process has been slowed down.

But this isn't the first time that the Storch family have expressed an interest in buying into a British football club. Indeed, over a period of not much longer than a year, they've been quite busy trying to find the right fit for their investment aspirations.

The Storch Family have expressed in four different clubs prior to their Sheffield Wednesday bid

In a report on the current state of the race to buy Sheffield Wednesday posted to The Athletic on the 16th December, football finance expert Matt Slater went into detail about the three bidders left, and pointed out that the Storch family's interest in buying into an EFL club is reasonably long-standing and well-known.

Slater reported that their interest in buying into a club in this country stretches back well beyond a year: "During that time, they have almost bought a minority share of Plymouth Argyle, pulled out of a plan to join Rob Couhig’s Reading takeover, seen a Gareth Bale-fronted bid for Cardiff City evaporate and not progressed with plans to invest in Blackpool."

He also offers a little background information on the father and son team who are expressing such an interest: "David Storch retired as chief executive of AAR Corp, an NYSE-listed aviation services provider based near Chicago, in 2018 after 39 years with the company. Michael is the football fan, but they are being advised on this deal by former Leeds United chairman Andrew Umbers."

The Storch family have been looking to invest in a club for more than a year

The highest-profile of the four clubs with whom they've expressed an interest was Cardiff City, with that profile coming as a result of the involvement of the former Wales international Gareth Bale, but their bids were rejected by Cardiff, whose owner, Vincent Tan, is understood to have little interest in selling the Bluebirds at present.

Bale was the common denominator in their interest in Plymouth Argyle, whose chairman Simon Hallett, had been looking for investment into the Devon club for quite a long time. Interest in neither club, however, resulted in anything concrete being agreed.

Sky Sports reported in the summer that "in March, Hallett agreed a deal in principle to sell a stake in the club to new investors, but it fell through in May", but also that "it is understood that initial discussions have taken place between the consortium and Argyle hierarchy, but have not gone any further at this stage".

It's unknown whether this was connected to the club's relegation from the Championship to League One that month, but the Bale-fronted bid, as reported by the Telegraph, had the Storch family as part of their consortium. Rob Couhig secured the purchase of Reading FC in April, with the club on the brink of being forced into administration themselves. This was Couhig's second bid for the club, with the first one having collapsed in September 2024.

There had been no previous reporting of the Storch's interest in Blackpool, but the Tangerines did confirm at the start of the summer that "on a wide-ranging programme of infrastructure upgrades and improvements" around Bloomfield Road.

With a decision over who the new owners of the club imminent, it remains impossible to say who the favourites to buy Sheffield Wednesday are, but this much can be said for the Storch family; whether they're successful or not in buying into a club, it won't be for a want of trying.