Ex-Sheffield United owner Prince Abdullah reacts to Sheffield Wednesday takeover claim | OneFootball

Former Sheffield United owner Prince Abdullah has dismissed the idea that he put Turki Alalshikh off purchasing Sheffield Wednesday.

Former owner of Sheffield United, the Saudi Arabian national Prince Abdullah bin Mossad Al Saud, has dismissed suggestions that he discouraged compatriot Turki Alalshikh from moving to purchase the Blades’ city rivals Sheffield Wednesday.

Prince Abdullah had held a 50% stake in Sheffield United between 2013 and 2019, before taking sole ownership of the Blades from 2019 and until 2024, where he has since sold it on to COH Sports.

Sheffield Wednesday find themselves in major trouble at the moment, with two weeks until the 2025/26 Championship campaign to go, with the Owls’ in a bit of a mess.

Late payment of players has provoked the likes of Josh Windass and Michael Smith to terminate their contracts, whilst Danny Rohl arrived for pre-season training late, held ‘clear the air’ talks, but has now departed via mutual consent, too.

With Wednesday in crisis before the season even gets underway, and the future of the club very uncertain at present, Prince Abdullah has denied that he scuppered Turki Alalshikh’s purchase of Sheffield Wednesday.

Prince Abdullah denies involvement in Sheffield Wednesday takeover

It had been reported that Turki Alalshikh, a Saudi Arabian boxing promoter, had been interested in purchasing an English club, and Wednesday were one of the options.

Wednesday then appeared to become even more likely a possibility with Dejphon Chansiri apparently wanting to sell the club and TalkSPORT pundit Simon Jordan revealing he had advised Alalshikh about purchasing the Owls.

However, according to Simon Jordan on TalkSPORT, Sheffield United’s former owner Prince Abdullah scuppered that deal, due to the way in which Prince Abdullah talked about the city of Sheffield.

Jordan said: “I don’t think he felt that his mate, he owned Sheffield United, had the nicest experience in Sheffield. He described Sheffield in certain ways that I can’t possibly say on air.”

In response to this, Prince Abdullah has dismissed Jordan’s claims as false, saying that the topic of the city and potential ownership was never discussed by the Saudi pair.

Prince Abdullah, posting via his X account, said: “Not accurate, hopefully I will be next week with Simon and Jim to clarify this. We never talked about SW or Sheffield the city.”

Sheffield Wednesday in turmoil before the season begins

Sheffield Wednesday have just a couple of weeks to begin to get their house in order before the 2025/26 Championship campaign gets underway with the Owls visiting just relegated from the Premier League Leicester City at the King Power Stadium on Sunday 10th August.

Earlier this summer, it was announced that due to financial mismanagement and the breaking of Profit and Sustainability Rules, Wednesday would be under a three-transfer window embargo, meaning they can not spend fees on players until January 2027.

The delayed payment of players has caused key men to leave, and they have also seen several other departures with the likes of Anthony Musaba and Djeidi Gassama sold to Samsunspor and Rangers respectively.

Sheffield Wednesday had flirted with the prospect of mounting a push towards the top six and the play-off places last season, before collapsing in the final couple of months to a more simple mid-table finish in the Championship.