By Out-Crowd
DEJPON CHANSIRI, the Thai owner of English football club Sheffield Wednesday, is decidedly looking for a co-investor to help with the planned shopping of outstanding players during the summer transfer market.
After a fruitful talk with Sheffield Wednesday manager Danny Rohl to the extent that the German has finally agreed to stay on with the Owls in the Championship, the second tier of the English football system, Dejpon is primarily obliged to seek a co-investor who could probably be at anyone’s guess.
Rohl has undoubtedly deserved accolades from Sheffield Wednesday supporters in general and Dejpon in particular for his ingenious management to barely keep the Owls from relegation to League 1, the third tier of the English football system.
But Dejpon has been obviously unpopular among Owls fans season in, season out since he bought Sheffield Wednesday for 37.5 million pounds in 2015 and totally failed to ever get it promoted to the top-tiered English Premier League since.
Generally known in England to not have much money in his pocket despite his being a brother to Thirapong Chansiri, CEO of Thai Union Group – the world’s largest canned tuna manufacturer, Dejpon had made a surprise plea last season, calling on all Owls fans to donate a sum of two million pounds to help pay for the club’s overdue tax bill.
Most of the Owls fans, especially those associated with the so-called 1867 Group, have ultimately found Dejpon’s financial status “unfit and inappropriate” for an otherwise trustworthy owner of a football club at Championship level, let alone the Premier League, in pursuit of professional successes.
Some of the Owls fans would jump to the arbitrary conclusion that no potential businesspersons would agree to deal with the current club owner in the first place whilst one would probably prefer to take it over from him much rather than co-invest with him, regardless of an affordable stake of millions of pounds.
Many had already been dumbfounded and displeased by his sarcastic solicitation for the two million pound cash pool in the face of sustained mass protests outside and inside Hillsborough stadium pressing him to “sell up and just go.”
Regardless of sustained criticism and open reaction which the Owls fans may launch further against Dejpon until the start of next season scheduled in mid-August, the Thai club owner has made it crystal clear that he will never sell his stake at Sheffield Wednesday to anyone else, either in a friendly or hostile environment.
Viewed by many Owls supporters as a “penny-pinching businessperson,” the Thai owner is only seeking co-investment and no corporate takeover, to say the least. That was a message relayed to the German manager during their recent talk on the near future of the Championship club.
Upon the end of last season, Rohl had earlier made it clear to Dejpon that he is needing a number of ace players to replace those who have just departed or will be leaving for other clubs and to add to next season’s Owls squad “at any costs possible.”
Though the German manager who had earlier joined coaching staff at Bundesliga clubs Bayern Munich and Leipzig and been decidedly encouraged by Owls supporters to set an ultimate goal of being promoted to the Premier League which they have missed since the last 24 years, he would have already called it quits and looked for a job elsewhere if the Thai owner had failed to promise him a boost in the amount of spending money to build up his Owls squad.
For starters, the Owls will be specifically challenged in the 24-team Championship games week in, week out next season by fellow city club Sheffield United which have been relegated from the Premier League after a one-season campaign debacle.
In addition to long-anticipated signings with the likes of skipper/midfielder Barry Bannan, striker Josh Windass and utility player Callum Paterson, the Owls manager is yet to sign outstanding loanees, namely winger Ike Ugbo from Troyes which have been relegated from France’s Ligue 2 to Championnat National, the third tier of the French football system, and goalkeeper James Beadle from Brighton & Hove Albion in the English Premier League, given their satisfactory performances last season.
Given a sufficient sum of spending money, Rohl would not only hunt for experienced players from rival Championship clubs but those in the Premier League on condition that they be literally one of the Owls’ starting 11 players week in, week out unless they get injured or their performance on the pitch is considered relatively inferior.
But the Owls manager would be enormously frustrated at the possibility that not much money might be coming his way as allegedly promised in next season’s campaign to sustain the Owls’ survival in the Championship, let alone promotion to the Premier League, albeit in play-off fashion.
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Top and Front Page: Sheffield Wednesday owner Dejpon Chansiri (centre in above photo) has been at the Yorkshire club since 2015. Photos: Getty Images and published by BBC
First insert: Sheffield Wednesday manager Danny Rohl. Photo: Rex Features and published by BBC
Second insert: The Sheffield Wednesday team celebrating after their 2-0 win over Sunderland on May 4, 2024. Photo: Sheffield Wednesday website.
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