Every party linked with sealing a Sheffield Wednesday takeover from Dejphon Chansiri | OneFootball

With Sheffield Wednesday in crisis and takeover talk in the air, here's everybody who's expressed an interest in buying the club in recent years.

Sheffield Wednesday have been subject to two takeover bids from an American consortium in recent weeks, but they're not the only people who've been interested in buying the club from owner Dejphon Chansiri in recent years.

Sheffield Wednesday have been plagued by problems in recent years, and these have not gone away during the 2024/25 season, with EFL charges over paying wages late on two separate occasions, as well as issues with paying HMRC on time in October 2024.

One of the small causes for optimism for Wednesday fans of late has been that takeover talk has started again, but this is tempered by the fact that this has happened before with no positive outcome. Here's a look at some of the other names that have been mentioned in connection with buying Wednesday in recent years, and what happened to those rumours.

Erick Alonso (January 2021)

Yorkshire Live reported in January 2021 that the club had been subject to a takeover bid fronted by Erik Alonso, who had until very recently had been an advisor to Chansiri.

But in this case, Wednesday fans might consider that they dodged a bullet. That summer, Alonso was involved in an attempt to take over the financially stricken Derby County which failed, with reports at the time suggesting that Alonso was "blaming anyone but himself for the deal falling apart."

An Anonymous Group (November 2023)

In November 2023, protest group The 1867 Group reported that Chansiri had been involved with negotiations with an anonymous group, which had got to the stage of Chansiri making "demands upon the consortium to prove they had sufficient capital not only to buy the club but also to fund it properly in the future".

They said that this demand had "been met and exceeded", but neither the identity of the group nor what ultimately happened in these negotiations were ever revealed.

Simon Jordan (April 2024)

There was speculation in April 2024 that the former Crystal Palace owner Simon Jordan could be interested in taking over the club following comments that he made on TalkSport.

These were dismissed by journalist Dom Howson, who tweeted at the time that, "He said something similar about Coventry earlier in the season and nothing materialised there."

Talal Al Hammad (February 2025)

In February 2025, The Sun reported that the former Wigan Athletic chairman Talal Al Hammad was interested in investing in Wednesday. Al Hammad's spell at Wigan had been a disaster. He was part of the consortium which bought them out of administration in 2021, only for the club's problems to continue until they were sold again in June 2023, even though they won the League One title in 2022.

There has been no indication that any talks went anywhere, though again Wednesday supporters may have considered him buying the club to be a case of jumping from the frying pan into the fire.

Anis Sefrioui (April 2025)

It was reported in April that Anis Sefrioui, a billionaire and one of Africa’s richest men, had decided to buy into the English game and that Wednesday were among his targets, with The Sun claiming that "one of Africa’s richest men sets sights on buying English club and he’s already decided on top choice."

These rumours turned out to be somewhat wide of the mark. It didn't take long for further reporting to confirm that there had been "no talks, no negotiations and not even any intention to invest in the club" from Sefrioui. A statement from Chansiri confirmed that there had been no offer to buy the club.

John Flanagan and Adam Shaw (April-May 2025)

There had been rumours that the owners of the Denver Broncos American football team were interested in buying the club, but these don't appear to have been anything more than internet gossip.

More substantial was the interest of a Florida-based consortium fronted by the businessman John Flanagan and the Sheffield-born Adam Shaw. They have, it is understood that they have made two bids for the club, the first of which was made in April and which was dismissed by the club as 'derisory', with a second, improved bid for the club having also been rejected.

As things stand, there is no indication that Sheffield Wednesday are to be sold beyond these endless rounds of negotiations which don't seem to go anywhere. There is certainly a lengthy history of bids to purchase the club having been rebuffed, and these have now been going so long that Wednesday supporters are justified in wondering whether Chansiri actually has any intention of selling the club in the first place.