There are still a lot of questions to be answered at Sheffield Wednesday, after administrators chose a consortium which we understand is being led by James Bord as the club’s preferred bidder.<\/b><\/p>\n
What isn’t known are the other people who are part of the consortium and where the bulk of the financial backing, or influence, will come from. Bord is the name fronting the group but it’s a mystery as to who else is involved.<\/p>\n
This will obviously influence whether the consortium clear the EFL owners and directors test.<\/p>\n
It will also dictate how fans feel about things. A group including successful wealthy individuals supporting a data-driven approach (which isn’t uncommon in football these days) is a perfectly reasonable vision for the club. Yet supporters need to know who else is involved to feel reassured – and until that happens, there’s a question mark.<\/p>\n
After everything that Sheffield Wednesday fans have gone through, they deserve transparency. They should insist on knowing who is involved in this consortium.<\/p>\n
There’s also the topic of Bord’s experience with Sheffield United.<\/p>\n
Some reports have suggested his influence has been overstated and limited only to the signing of young data-driven players such as Nils Zatterstrom, Ehije Ukaki, Mihail Polendakov, Christian Nwachukwu and Jefferson Caceres.<\/p>\n
However, sources familiar with the situation tell me his consulting influence stretched beyond this.<\/p>\n
United had a summer that saw Chris Wilder depart and Ruben Selles appointed in an unusual manner, where no alternative bosses were interviewed for a job that was one of the most high profile in the EFL.<\/p>\n
Selles lost all six of his league games in charge before he was sacked and Wilder was hastily brought back.<\/p>\n
Analytical data was presented to both managers to aid team selections, although neither were told who to pick.<\/p>\n
The club also had an unconvincing summer transfer window, where signings like Mark Guinness, Alex Matos, Ben Godfrey and Louie Barry have struggled to make an impact.<\/p>\n
The Blades finished on 90 points (with two deducted) last season as they finished third and lost the play-off final to Sunderland. This year they’re 19th and have already lost three more games then they did in the entirety of last season.<\/p>\n
The summer decision making set the club back and now they’re trying to recover.<\/p>\n
The jury also remains very much out on the young data-led signings United added. One, Caceres, left United after just a few months to join Bord’s other UK-based club in Dunfermline.<\/p>\n
It’s unclear if any of the remaining additions have what it takes to make it at Bramall Lane.<\/p>\n
Other sources believe Dunfermline have been stabilised since their January takeover, even if their league position of sixth doesn’t show much progress in terms of results (they finished seventh last season).<\/p>\n
Bord has minority stakes at Septemvri Sofia in Bulgaria and Cordoba in Spain. Both have experienced promotions. I’m told he also advised a top Premier League club on their recruitment too.<\/p>\n
The statement released by Sheffield Wednesday on Christmas Eve suggested the \u00a330m threshold to avoid a 15-point deduction next season will be cleared. That was always an aim, to ensure creditors received 25p in the pound and the club would avoid further sanctions.<\/p>\n
No timescale has been set for the EFL’s vetting process although a decision is not expected to come quickly. It could take weeks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There are still a lot of questions to be answered at Sheffield Wednesday, after administrators chose a consortium…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":660785,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8817],"tags":[748,393,4884,1620,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-660784","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sheffield","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-sheffield","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115804254587113395","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=660784"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660784\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/660785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=660784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=660784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=660784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}