New regulator could remove ‘rogue’ owners faster, says Fair Game

2026-03-25 - 23:20

Sheffield Wednesday were relegated from the Championship after owner Dejphon Chansiri placed the club into administration. (Sheffield Wednesday pic) MANCHESTER: The incoming Independent Football Regulator (IFR) could speed up the removal of “rogue” owners from English clubs and prevent the kind of financial turmoil currently afflicting Sheffield Wednesday, according to campaign group Fair Game. Fans of second-tier Wednesday resorted to mass boycotts of home games to force out owner Dejphon Chansiri after the club’s finances reached crisis point last summer. Wednesday were subsequently docked 12 points after Chansiri eventually placed the club in administration in October and another six for various financial breaches, resulting in the earliest ever relegation from the second-tier Championship. Chansiri, who led a Thai consortium to buy the club in 2015 and invested heavily in the early years of his ownership in a bid to reach the Premier League, was subsequently prohibited from being an owner or director of any English Football League (EFL) club for three years. Niall Couper, CEO of Fair Game – an independent campaign group and think tank dedicated to reforming the governance of English football – believes that had the IFR already been in place, Wednesday’s situation would not have become so dire. ‘Start looking at retro-fitting’ “One of the big things from a Fair Game perspective is you have to start looking at retro-fitting,” he told Reuters at the Fair Game conference at Manchester’s National Football Museum on Wednesday. “At the moment we’re talking about new owners coming in and that’s where the remit is. The key is that the previous rules (on club ownership) were not fit for purpose. “The hope is the new system will bring in much stronger rules and we can say ‘let’s start looking under the bonnet of these clubs’ and see how clean our national game is. “The answer is there are going to be a number of examples where it’s not.” Prior to the club being placed in administration, Chansiri defended his ownership, stating in 2023 that all he had ever wanted was “the best for Sheffield Wednesday”. Wednesday were eventually dragged into a downward spiral as players and staff were not paid and multiple transfer embargoes were imposed by the EFL. Red flags Couper said ‘red flags’ could have been acted on before and says the IFR could intervene in similar cases under a new licensing system, which will be subject to ongoing monitoring of a club’s finances. “If you are Sheffield Wednesday fans you will ask how long ago should those owners have been removed? The answer is a long time,” Couper said. “We need to be in a situation that they can be removed but in a safe way. “Fair Game talks a lot about the idea of funds held by the regulator to cover the liabilities of a club for a period of time so when you have a rogue owner, a bad owner, that owner can be removed without financial stress.” A proposed £47.8 million takeover of Sheffield Wednesday by a consortium led by former professional poker player James Bord fell through in February. Another bid is now on the table from a consortium led by American businessman David Storch, although the club could be hit with a 15-point penalty next season under EFL rules if the prospective new owners do not pay creditors, including £15 million to Chansiri. Fair Game was instrumental in campaigning for the creation of the Independent Football Regulator which was created in 2025 with a wide remit including enforcing financial sustainability, to tighten ownership rules and protect fans’ interests.