How much money AI thinks Sheffield Wednesday should be sold for - Chansiri wants £100m | OneFootball

Sheffield Wednesday haven't been sold and Dejphon Chansiri's £100m valuation is the main sticking point, so we asked AI what the should be sold for.

Sheffield Wednesday still haven't been sold, and if anything, the trail of potential new buyers has run cold. With the players having been told that they wouldn't be paid on time at the end of September, we asked AI what the club is actually worth.

Sheffield Wednesday remain in crisis. Towards the bottom of the Championship, and with it reported that the club have advised their players that they won't be paid on time again, it feels as though nothing about the club's circumstances has improved since the full extent of their difficulties started to become evident earlier this year.

The best route out of this mess would be for the club to be sold, but over the course of September, takeover talk that had been swirling throughout the summer has run somewhat cold. It has been widely reported that the club's owner, Dejphon Chansiri, has put a £100 million price tag on the club, but this has been widely criticised as a wild over-estimation of the club's actual value.

With all of this in mind, FLW have turned to ChatGPT in order to see if an accurate valuation for Sheffield Wednesday can be found. Its response shines considerable light on why the club hasn't been sold, despite reported interest from several different parties over the last few months.

ChatGPT values Sheffield Wednesday at between £35 million and £65 million, depending on its condition

We asked ChatGPT to come up with a valuation for Sheffield Wednesday, and it gave us three different answers within three different pricing bands, depending on the club's exact circumstances. But none of those were the £100 million valuation that Chansiri has placed upon the club.

The first of these was a "low multiple" valuation, which was calculated on the basis of one and a half times their annual revenue. This valued the club at £42.4 million, as part of a broader range of £35 million to £45 million. This was calculated on what it described as a "conservative basis", which it described as "liabilities high, risk high, lack of owner payments, asset base weak".

The second was described as a "mid-multiple" valuation, and this was based on twice their annual revenue, any new buyer paying little or nothing up front unless Chansiri clears the club's outstanding liabilities. This came out at £52.68 million, within a broader range of £45 million to £55 million, though AI was quick to point out that it would be dependent on the new owner injecting liquidity into the club and restructuring it.

The final one was - from Chansiri's perspective, certainly - the most optimistic of the three, a "high multiple" valuation based on two and half times their annual revenue. This valued the club as being worth potentially £65.85 million, within a broader range of £60 million to £80 million, but any such valuation would be dependent upon a buyer insisting that Chansiri accepts little to no cash and writes off loans that he has made for the club, or that the buyer pays additional sums to clear the club's debts. This figure should, AI warns, only be considered for "healthy EFL clubs".

There is very little that is straightforward about selling Sheffield Wednesday

Although the models as described above are commonly discussed when discussing the sale of football clubs, the truth of the matter is that a football club is only really worth what someone is prepared to sell it for and what someone else is prepared to buy it for.

As can be seen, ChatGPT's valuations for the club recognise that the calculations involved are complicated, and there's nothing straightforward about selling Sheffield Wednesday. For example, the club does not own Hillsborough. It's owned by a company controlled by Chansiri, to whom Wednesday have to pay rent.

The stadium is also in serious need of renovation. If the club, but not the stadium, were to be sold, the club would be in a more conventional landlord/tenant relationship, so where would responsibility for maintaining and upgrading it rest?

And then there's the small matter of the club's debts. Sheffield Wednesday have about £81.9 million in net liabilities, including around £61.2m due to Chansiri. Whoever buys the club would be assuming responsibility for that not-inconsiderable amount of money, too, unless Chansiri was prepared to write off the money that he'd put into the club in the first place.

So, as we can see, the situation regarding any sale is complicated by the complexities that have come about largely as a result of Chansiri's mismanagement of the club. ChatGPT may have come up with a fairly broad valuation for Sheffield Wednesday, but it remains the case that even its most optimistic prognosis for the club's value remains miles from that £100 million figure that's been floating around since the summer.