John Textor and a Sheffield Wednesday takeover: Everything we know so far | OneFootball

Sheffield Wednesday have endured a summer of crisis, but there is now a possibility of a takeover.

Sheffield Wednesday have had a difficult summer, but there may yet be some light at the end of the tunnel with their takeover hopes.

Wednesday's start to the Championship season ended in a 2-1 defeat at Leicester City, but the team put in a creditable enough performance to suggest that talk of their imminent relegation may have been slightly overblown.

If anything, the last week or so has brought some cautious reasons to be optimistic about the club's future wellbeing, with reports that the American investor John Textor is starting to move towards a takeover.

Wednesday certainly aren't out of the woods yet, but there are at last some signs that things might have gotten as bad as they were going to for this famous old club. Here's a round-up of everything that we know about Textor's interest in Sheffield Wednesday.

Textor has teamed up with football financier Keith Harris for Wednesday takeover

The Guardian has reported that Textor has linked up with football financier Keith Harris in order to try and secure the funding to complete the purchase of Sheffield Wednesday. Harris has been linked with Textor before. In November 2024, he was reported to be leading a consortium which wanted to buy Textor's 45% share in Crystal Palace, though this didn't end up proceeding.

Textor sold his shareholding to the New York Jets owner Woody Johnson in July, but not before Palace had been demoted to the Europa Conference League from the Europa League after winning the FA Cup over a breach of multi-club ownership rules; they had their appeal against this thrown out on Monday.

Harris has been involved as a go-between in a number of different takeovers at high-profile clubs over more than twenty years, including Fulham, Aston Villa and Manchester City. He was made a director of Everton in 2016 and was involved in an unsuccessful attempt to buy the club from former owner Farhad Moshiri in 2024. He was also part of the Red Knights, a consortium of businessmen who unsuccessfully sought to buy Manchester United from the Glazers in 2012.

Wednesday fans are to up their protests at first home league game of the season

Sheffield Wednesday fans turned out in numbers for their first League match of the season at Leicester, but made their protest by entering the game - to thunderous applause from the home fans, who have had financial issues of their own of late - five minutes into the match.

Such protests seem likely to continue until any takeover is over the line. Wednesday entertain Stoke City in their first home match of the 2025-26 season on Saturday, and there will be further protests, including a “funeral procession” through Hillsborough Park before the match. The Sheffield Wednesday Supporters Trust are also urging a boycott of match-day food, drink, and merchandise.

The lifting of the transfer embargo relieves a little pressure on the club

The lifting of the transfer embargo that had been put in place on Sheffield Wednesday at the end of last week provided some relief to supporters, though the club's position remains imperilled. Wednesday were able to do this as a result of receiving their Premier League solidarity payment, paying wages and outstanding transfer fees up to date when they'd been paid late four times in the last five months.

It is worth remembering that Wednesday will not be getting another payment like this at the end of August, when wages, fees and payments to HMRC fall due again, and if there is no takeover completed by then there is every chance that the embargo will be put back in place, though may have less of an effect, as it coincides with the closure of the summer transfer window.

The club remains under a fee restriction which is currently in place to the end of the winter 2027 transfer window, and this will severely limit the players that they can bring in, but with the first-team squad having been reduced to 16 players and concerns that they may not be able to register club captain Barry Bannan, who'd previously delighted fans by agreeing a contract extension with the club, in time for the Leicester match.

With the squad down to bare bones, there was a genuine concern that Wednesday might have been unable to put a team out for their early matches, a concern that had been amplified by the players going on strike for their behind-closed-doors friendly at Burnley a week before the start of the Championship season. The race may now be on for Textor to secure his purchase of the club before the end of August.