47-year-old is facing scary task at Sheffield Wednesday | OneFootball

Henrik Pedersen steps into chaos at Hillsborough as Sheffield Wednesday face player exodus, stadium issues and financial crisis

It takes a special kind of courage - or perhaps delusion - to take on the Sheffield Wednesday job right now.

Henrik Pedersen may have accepted his first head coach role in England - but this is no ordinary appointment. The Dane, promoted from assistant following the turbulent resignation of Danny Rohl, now finds himself at the helm of a club not merely in transition, but in serious peril.

Pedersen steps into the Owls' dugout with the start of the 2025/26 season just days away, and with chaos unfolding around him: unpaid wages, a transfer embargo, critical stadium safety concerns, and a squad stripped of both experience and attacking output.

Henrik Pedersen inherits a monumental task at Sheffield Wednesday

Pedersen has taken on one of the hardest jobs in English football. The cautious optimism that followed Wednesday’s campaign in the Championship last season has been utterly extinguished.

Any hope of building on that 12th place finish has collapsed under the weight of unpaid wages, embargoes and instability.

The departure of Rohl, one of the few figures who had managed to unite the fanbase during his tenure, was a gut punch.

That his trusted assistant would step up might bring some continuity, but it also leaves Pedersen exposed - tasked with leading a squad that, as it stands, barely constitutes a team.

The Owls' financial situation is desperate. The squad has been gutted of talent: over 50 goal contributions have been lost through player exits, and the club remains under embargo due to unpaid debts.

Wingers Djeidi Gassama and Anthony Musaba, plus teenage prospect Caelan-Kole Cadamarteri, were sold to raise cash, but with limited effect.

The club still owes reportedly close to £4 million in transfer fees, and its matchday infrastructure is now under question, with Hillsborough’s North Stand deemed unsafe just weeks before kick-off.

Wednesday are living on borrowed time - and borrowed goodwill.

Dejphon Chansiri’s grip on power threatens Sheffield Wednesday’s immediate and long term future

At the root of this turmoil is chairman Dejphon Chansiri. His Wednesday stewardship has long been criticised, but this summer has seen confidence collapse entirely.

After openly asking fans to help pay the club’s bills last autumn, Chansiri is now reportedly rejecting serious takeover interest while holding out for a £100 million valuation that bears no relation to reality.

Local MP Clive Betts has described the club as “a hostage crisis” - meanwhile, Owls supporters have mobilised, demanding answers and transparency, but to little effect.

Until ownership changes, or significant structural reform is enacted, Pedersen and any future head coach will remain firefighting.

In that context, it’s hard not to feel sympathy for Pedersen. He inherits a toxic situation with no guarantees about who will still be at the club in a week, let alone by the end of the season.

He has no transfer window to work with, no senior forwards who scored in double digits last year, and potentially no captain, with Barry Bannan still out of contract. The Dane’s first game? Away at Leicester City, who will be among the promotion favourites.

Even if Pedersen proves a tactical genius or a miracle motivator, the systemic rot at Wednesday is beyond any coach’s power to fix.

Until ownership changes or structural reform comes in, every manager is just papering over the cracks. The risk isn’t just a poor season - it’s collapse. Points deductions, relegation or worse are all real possibilities.

Taking this job required either immense faith or very few alternatives. If Pedersen manages to keep the team competitive under these conditions, it will be nothing short of a managerial triumph - but expectations have shifted drastically.

This season is no longer about progression: it is about survival, in every sense of the word.

For now, Pedersen's biggest challenge won’t be tactical cohesion or attacking fluidity. It will be holding together a squad in flux, navigating a club in crisis and shielding himself from a situation not of his making.