Owls’ High Court Appearance Shows The Demise of Yet Another ‘Big Club’

It’s not been a very good week for Sheffield Wednesday fans. Wednesday morning’s work just had to wait as I sat in front of my laptop, manually refreshing BBC updates from inside the High Court to find out whether or not a judge was about to place the club I support and love into administration. Sad? Desperate? Maybe. But when things get as bad as they are with Wednesday at the moment, it is always going to be the fans that suffer. In fact, my flatmate asked me the other day, “Why do you say ‘we’ when you talk about Sheffield Wednesday? Why say, ‘we’re about to go into administration’? You have nothing directly to do with them!” To be fair, as far as far as English grammar goes, she was right. But in football, the fans are as much of a part of a club as the directors, manager and players are, and when times get tough it is the fans that suffer more than anyone.

The Owls are roughly £27 million in debt, with the main creditor, the Co-op Bank, owed £23 million by the football club. The bank have persevered with Wednesday, offering them loans and financial support in times of recent hardship, but have now lost patience and want their money back and the club off their books. It is believed that a guaranteed payout of £7 million would satisfy the bank and they would be prepared to write the other £16 million off. In addition to the bank, there are several other loan note holders who would be offered a guaranteed proportion of the money that they are owed in a similar deal to the bank’s offer in any proposed takeover deal. However, there is a bigger problem that goes by the name of Her Majesties Revenue and Customs (HMRC). Wednesday owe £1.4 million in unpaid tax bills, and HMRC want every penny of that money as quickly as possible. Everyone knows that the taxman doesn’t wait for his money, and this is no exception. However, with four possible takeover bids on the table, the High Court judge ruled that Wednesday could have a 28 day ‘stay of execution’ to get a takeover deal finalised. However, a warning was also given that Wednesday were clearly trading insolvently and if a deal could not be brokered then administration would be the only option.

So how do things like this happen to so called ‘big clubs’? Wednesday are not the first football club to be put in this position, and they won’t be the last. Clubs such as Leeds, Leicester, Cardiff and most notably Portsmouth have all been in Wednesday’s position recently, and even the giants of English football, Manchester United and Liverpool have been beset with financial problems. It just seems to be the way that certain football clubs are run nowadays. Mismanagement and greed on behalf of owners and chairmen result in football clubs living beyond their means. This happened to Wednesday during the late 1990’s, and the club has been on a downward spiral ever since.

Wednesday’s biggest problem is that they are currently sat mid table in League 1 and therefore don’t have enough capital coming in to sustain the football club, hence the position they’re in now. However, as far as I’m concerned, Wednesday will always be a ‘big club’. Any football club that can attract over 20,000 fans to watch mediocre football (23,081 people turned up to watch Wednesday play Dagenham and Redbridge in August) demonstrates its potential to thrive. However, I fear that for a good while longer, all Wednesday will have to hold on to is potential and hope. Role on 28 days time...

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