Reaction given to Sheffield Wednesday, James Bord takeover update - 'we deserve good news' | OneFootball

FLW’s Owls expert has trust in the league’s process

This article is part of Football League World's 'Terrace Talk' series, which provides personal opinions from our FLW Fan Pundits regarding the latest breaking news, teams, players, managers, potential signings and more…

Fresh uncertainty continues to hang over Sheffield Wednesday’s long-awaited takeover, with growing acceptance that resolution may still be weeks away rather than days.

Reporting from Alan Nixon has underlined that the EFL’s Owners’ and Directors’ Test is expected to be both lengthy and forensic, as the league scrutinises the legitimacy and origin of the funds underpinning the bid led by James Bord.

Bord’s consortium was confirmed as preferred bidder on Christmas Eve, a development that initially felt like movement at last after inertia following administration.

Yet preferred bidder status has brought neither operational freedom nor meaningful clarity. The club remains constrained in the January transfer window, its short-term finances fragile, and its medium-term planning effectively frozen until regulatory approval is secured.

The added complexity relates to Bord’s previous career in professional gambling and the international structure of the funding supporting his bid, including capital reported to originate from Bahrain.

The EFL is understood to be applying enhanced scrutiny, shaped by a wider climate of regulatory caution and political pressure around football governance.

Bord is not alleged to breach any rules, but it is precisely the kind of complexity that the league is now unwilling to rush through.

Sheffield Wednesday reaction to delays in James Bord takeover bid

Reality has sharpened a familiar dilemma at Hillsborough. On one hand, the longer the process drags on, the greater the risk to an already depleted squad and a club operating in survival mode.

On the other, Owls supporters have seen first-hand the consequences of ownership decisions that prioritised speed over substance.

Against that backdrop, Football League World spoke to in-house Owls expert Patrick McKenna to gauge whether patience with the EFL’s approach is wearing thin - or whether there is a broader acceptance that delay may be the lesser of two evils.

“In regards to the checks being done on the preferred bidder, I think that it has to be a good thing that it is thorough from the EFL and they are just not waving anybody through,” McKenna told FLW.

“We see it with that one Chansiri, he somehow passed a Fit and Proper test - and we saw how that worked out.

“So if these checks are going to take a while and they want to put James Bord and his consortium under scrutiny, well, ultimately, that is a good thing.

“Yes, this could lead to him being rejected and then we'll go back to square one - which isn't ideal - but that is a better situation than someone being whipped through, and then they turn out to be a disaster.

“So with the takeover situation, I think certainly the initial excitement and jubilation of Chansiri leaving, it does seem a while ago now. I think the process has gone on longer than expected.

“With the continuing form, I am just hoping that we see more good news sooner rather than later.

“But that is tempered with the fact that if the process is going to be done correctly, it may take a bit longer.

“I really think that as a fan base, we deserve good news and that it is going to come to us sooner rather than later because it's been a thoroughly miserable season.

“We just want new and better owners in now, so that we can start planning for the future and for better things next season.”

EFL patience is a hard sell for Sheffield Wednesday supporters

The news lands against a backdrop of deep-seated mistrust towards the EFL among Owls supporters. This is a fanbase that feels failed repeatedly by the same regulatory structures now asking for patience.

The EFL waved Dejphon Chansiri through its ownership tests with catastrophic consequences, struggled to intervene meaningfully as the club slid towards insolvency, and now enforces transfer embargo rules that have left the Owls operating with a dangerously thin senior squad.

Those restrictions are not abstract governance mechanisms: they are felt weekly on the pitch, where injuries have stretched Wednesday beyond its design, they are felt in the reliance on academy players being asked to step up before they are physically or tactically ready, and they are felt in the growing welfare concerns around players being pushed through pain simply to fulfil fixtures.

In that context, being told - again - that the process must take time sits uneasily.

Yet the contradiction remains unavoidable. The same supporters who are sceptical of the EFL’s competence are also painfully aware of what happens when ownership checks are inadequate.

Speed without scrutiny is how Wednesday arrived here. The league’s caution over James Bord’s bid may feel like another burden imposed on a club already at breaking point, but a rushed approval that stores up future disaster would be worse still.

This is the bind in which Wednesday now exist: punished by the failures of the past, constrained by the safeguards of the present, and uncertain of the future.

The frustration is not that rules exist, but that they appear inconsistently applied - permissive when they should have been strict, and unforgiving when the damage has already been done.