Takeover bid turned down by owner
On Monday 8th February Sheffield Wednesday were said to have turned down a takeover bid headed by former advisor Erik Alonso.
Alonso, the owner of a sports management business, WBD Sports, was said to have been backed by an Indonesian consortium making an offer of around £30M. The offer was dismissed by Owls owner Dejphon Chansiri.
The news represents another twist in an ever intriguing off-field saga surrounding the club. In December some of Alonso’s social media profiles indicated he may have declared a holding in the club before reference to this was removed. Chansiri was subsequently asked about Alonso’s involvement, to which he stated he had acted as one of a number of advisors, nothing more.
Last month Alonso ‘liked’ various tweets that were critical of the running of the club, seemingly in response to his support for Paul Cook to become the next manager, something the now seems unlikely. Further to this, Alonso then stated he was no longer working for the club due to irreconcilable differences, to which Chansiri retorted that the Spanish businessman had never held a formal official position in the first place.
Reports have also recently linked Alonso with a bid for Derby County, who, like the Owls, have recently been subjected to disciplinary action by the EFL for breaching financial regulations.
Chansiri, who bought Sheffield Wednesday in 2015, has invested heavily in the Owls since then but has seen the performance of the club decline since successive top 6 finishes in 2015-16 and 2016-17. It is thought that the purported £30M bid is way short of any prospective valuation that he would be likely to consider.