Sheffield Wednesday backed to replace Chansiri with "experienced businessman" after "draining" takeover saga | OneFootball

Football League World's Sheffield Wednesday Fan Pundit has their view on John Textor's potential takeover of the Owls.

This article is part of Football League World's 'Terrace Talk' series, which provides personal opinions from our FLW Fan Pundits regarding the latest breaking news, teams, players, managers, potential signings and more...

Sheffield Wednesday are the current crisis club of the EFL, with the Owls heading into the season in a bit of disarray after a summer of upheaval over the last couple of months.

Danny Rohl parted company via mutual consent last week, following on from the likes of Josh Windass and Michael Smith terminating their contracts to depart on free transfers due to being paid late.

As supporters grow increasingly concerned about the future existence of Wednesday, there is now talk that Botafogo and Olympique Lyonnais owner John Textor is interested in purchasing the club from current owner Dejphon Chansiri.

Textor would have to be welcomed by Sheffield Wednesday

Textor has a patchy history as an owner already, and his wider involvement in football clubs has hit the news quite a lot this summer, but the situation that Sheffield Wednesday find themselves in is a desperate one.

As FLW’s Sheffield Wednesday Fan Pundit, Patrick McKenna, has explained; the Owls would welcome the arrival of Textor, and he could bring with him some benefits.

Patrick says: “The underlying situation and the fact of the matter is that someone has to take over the club. If Dejphon Chansiri stays as owner then the future of the club will be in an absolutely perilous state.

“Someone needs to come along and just take it, whether that be John Textor or somebody else.

“It is draining and frustrating, always hearing rumours and it’ll come to fruition that X or Y is in the front running now, and John Textor is a name that certainly hasn’t gone away during the past few months.

“Would I welcome him at the club? The answer to that has to be yes.

“He isn’t a man that has been out of the headlines in the last few months, with what has gone on at his other clubs, but what I am looking at, and the only thing I’m focused on, is what he could bring to Sheffield Wednesday, and for a start, it’s a lot more than Dejphon Chansiri.

“The guy is an experienced businessman, whereas Chansiri is not a businessman at all. He has knowledge and experience of football and I think he now has a real passion to take over a new English club.

“One thing that could possibly work in our favour if it was to be Textor to take over would be the multi-club ownership model, as we could potentially bring in some players from some of his other clubs to get around the embargo which may not even be lifted upon the takeover.

“Another thing with regards to Textor is that it is rumoured that Dave Richards is rumoured to be taking over as chairman, so he won’t be trying to run the whole operation on his own and he’ll be looking to bring in a proper structure to run the club.

“I think he will have the knowledge to identify the key areas of concern around the club, such as the lack of infrastructure and a lack of any sort of policy for transfers.”

Textor’s controversies this summer with Lyon and Crystal Palace

Botafogo supporters are often keen to express their displeasure at how Textor has run the Brazilian giants, despite them actually having a fair bit of success on the pitch.

He is also not particularly well liked by another club he owns, Racing White Daring Molenbeek, of whom he wants to change the name of, following their relegation from the Belgian Jupiler Pro League last season.

Lyon were handed an administrative relegation by Ligue 1 earlier this summer, having been warned for much of the last year or so about the way in which they have presented their finances to French footballing authorities.

On appeal, they have been reinstated into the French top-flight, but will now surely have to begin adhering to the rules, and that will require some extreme changes to their operations.

His involvement with Lyon, and them winning their appeal, now means that Crystal Palace have been demoted from the UEFA Europa League and into the UEFA Europa Conference League, because Textor is deemed by UEFA to have a controlling interest at both clubs and they cannot both compete in the same competition.

There isn’t really a set of supporters, and there are quite a lot of them, that are happy with Textor, but Sheffield Wednesday find themselves in a desperate situation.