New Sheffield Wednesday concern raised - it’s a real worry & not Danny Rohl exit or takeover related | OneFootball

There is fresh concern at Sheffield Wednesday that the club’s training facilities may not be ready on time for the start of pre-season preparations.

There is fresh concern at Sheffield Wednesday that the club’s training facilities may not be ready on time for the start of pre-season preparations.

With the 2025/26 campaign looming, and the full fixture list set to be released, concerns over whether the Owls will be able to begin their training in earnest have been raised.

Middlewood Road training ground uncertainty

Mike McGrath, a football reporter at the Daily Telegraph newspaper, posted on his X account that there was “uncertainty” over the readiness of Wednesday’s training facilities.

There has been work going on at the Owls’ Middlewood Road training ground since the end of the 2024/25 season, with the first team’s pitch being relaid alongside major upgrades for the facilities used by academy players.

While the focus on the seven-figure development has been on improvements for Wednesday’s youth set-up, there remains uncertainty over the status of the facilities used by the senior team with the players set to return to begin their work ahead of the new season.

A state-of-the-art new playing surface is part of the upgrades, with the Owls becoming the first club in England to lay a ‘Pure PT’ surface made by TigerTurf. It has been used by Dutch greats PSV Eindhoven, and has been praised by Wednesday’s new academy manager Jon Pepper.

A comedy of errors behind the scenes at Sheffield Wednesday

McGrath had also noted that Rohl’s exit is being discussed, as the Sheffield Star exclusively revealed, with the German coach not running the first sessions of the pre-season camp for the senior team.

Rohl, who has been linked to moves away from Hillsborough, is in discussions with the higher-ups at Wednesday over a compromise in his contract to allow him to move on. That has been agreed as the best way forward, as opposed to dragging the issue out into the start of the 2025/26 season, but a deal is yet to be struck.

Rumours and reports over the ownership of the club rumble on too, with ex-Crystal Palace shareholder John Textor linked to a takeover. Current owner Dejphon Chansiri has come under continual fire from supporters, with a latest blow coming in the form of transfer restrictions after a failure to pay staff and players on time.

While talk over improvements of Hillsborough have also been discussed, the alterations to the Middlewood Road training facility are a reality.

However, McGrath’s post follows reporting from Sheffield Star journalist Alex Miller early in the week that workarounds have been put in place to allow the first few days of training to get underway.

That comes as delays have prohibited the on-time completion of upgrades to the facilities, with the expected date not in the immediate future and first-team players returning to training on Thursday, June 26.