Leeds United should hit Dejphon Chansiri with a further blow - Sheffield Wednesday fans are doing the right thing | OneFootball

Leeds United fans could send a statement to both Dejphon Chansiri and the EFL by joining Sheffield Wednesday fans in a boycott of their EFL Cup tie.

Sheffield Wednesday supporters are being urged to boycott their club's upcoming EFL Cup match against Leeds United, and Leeds fans should join them with bigger issues at play here than a local rivalry.

When a football club finds itself in the sort of crisis in which Sheffield Wednesday have become embroiled this summer, it can lead to a powerless feeling for supporters. The normal language of a football club is to play up the importance of fans. Not for nothing are they frequently referred to as "The 12th Man", but when push comes to shove, fans can feel powerless to move the levers of control over what happens to their club unless they protest.

And under the leadership of the Sheffield Wednesday Supporters Trust (SWST), at Hillsborough the fans are making their voices heard by not making them heard. At kick-off of their opening match of the season, away to Leicester City, the away end at The King Power Stadium sat almost empty. Wednesday fans made their point by entering into the game with five minutes having been played. The message was a very simple one - this game doesn't amount to anything without us.

Wednesday's next home match is one that would have supporters licking their lips when it was announced - at home to Leeds United in the Second Round of the EFL Cup. Leeds may have been promoted to the Premier League at the end of last season, but the rivalry between South and West Yorkshire remains as fierce as ever. Leeds would expect to take their huge travelling support to Hillsborough for the match. It's one of the biggest ties of the round and a stacked away end would line the pockets of Dejphon Chansiri.

The Sheffield Wednesday boycott is about more than the well-being of one particular club

But this match won't be quite as much of an event as the EFL and the broadcasters might have hoped, because there's a real possibility that there won't be that many home fans in attendance for it. The SWST have asked home fans to boycott this match and donate money to a local children's hospital instead.

This may not even be too much of a bind for Wednesday fans. After all, the club's ticket prices have been notoriously high, more or less since Dejphon Chansiri took ownership of the club. With cup matches not being included in season tickets, few would have enjoyed forking out another £15 on a ticket for a match that their team has little chance of winning anyway, if their start to the league season is anything to go by.

But when it comes to protests, there is a bigger point to be made than winning or losing a football match or even bragging rights in a local derby. The threat to Sheffield Wednesday is existential. Until a change of ownership happens at Hillsborough, the club's very future is at risk. And this isn't even a matter of administration and a points deduction; the condition of Sheffield Wednesday is so bad that there is a real risk that they could collapse altogether in the coming weeks.

And Leeds United fans should be more aware of how this feels than most. Their club was abominably run for more than a decade. From Peter Ridsdale's wild overspending in the early 2000s to Massimo Cellino and his antics in the 2010s, Leeds were kicked from pillar to post, and the biggest victims of this maladministration were the fans themselves.

At the start of the 2007-08 season, the club were in a desperate position. They'd entered into administration earlier in the year, but a CVA - a type of legal arrangement which allows indebted businesses to repay a part of what they owe to creditors as a last resort before liquidation - was challenged in court during the summer, meaning that the club had not, as per EFL rules, exited administration before the start of the season.

Before the start of the new season, Leeds faced a vote over whether they were to be allowed to start the new season or not. They got through that, but with a 15-point deduction. That points deduction was appealed and went to another vote, but while it was passed, 15 clubs voted against it, and Sheffield Wednesday were one of them.

To be clear, this isn't about Leeds fans "owing" Sheffield Wednesday anything. But there is a broader point to be made here. Talk of "the football family" can be cloying at times, but there are times when we have to take a broader perspective than what happens on the pitch, the rivalries between clubs or the results of matches. There are times when we all, as fans, understand that all clubs are precious, even those we hate.

We've already seen it this season. When those travelling Sheffield Wednesday supporters appeared five minutes into their match at Leicester, they were met by a touchingly thunderous round of applause from home supporters whose club is going through their own financial issues at the moment. Bolton Wanderers supporters left cards wishing them the best in their fight at their EFL Cup match. Bolton supporters too have been through that empty feeling of not even knowing whether their club will exist or not in a few days, weeks, or months' time.

And in truth, that sinking feeling is one with which many fans are already more familiar than they should be. Of the current top twelve clubs in the Championship, more than half have had what might be reasonably termed "near-death experiences", from Bristol City's near-collapse in 1982 and Middlesbrough getting locked out of Ayresome Park in 1986 to spells in administration for Southampton, Leicester and Hull City or Coventry City needlessly being forced from their home twice by owners who often seemed more interested in buying the CBS Arena than running Coventry City Football Club.

It would be wrong to criticise Leeds fans who want to attend his match and do so despite requests not to. It's perfectly reasonable to think that what's going on behind the scenes at another club is nothing to do with you and that all you want to do is watch a football match and cheer on your team. People attend football for escapism from their everyday lives.

But when Bury were expelled from the EFL in 2019 - the first club to leave once a season had started since Maidstone United in 1992 - there was a lot of talk of "never again." The independent football regulator that is due to come into force shortly came about in part as a result of criticism that so few were in a position to force the hands of the asset-strippers who'd come to be involved at Gigg Lane.

Sheffield Wednesday did the right thing in 2007, and the club's supporters are doing the right thing in 2025. Leeds supporters could send a powerful message about the fact that football without fans is nothing by joining Sheffield Wednesday fans in a boycott of this match. On this occasion, those who truly make football the spectacle that it is could make their voices heard by refusing to be a part of it in the first place.

It won't save Wednesday, of course, but it will hit Chansiri harder than just the home fans boycotting the game. At this moment in time, any win is a win for the Wednesday faithful.