Exclusive:Dejphon Chansiri sensationally misses deadline for last-gasp Sheffield Wednesday payday
Ousted Sheffield Wednesday chairman Dejphon Chansiri has bizarrely missed an important deadline in the club’s sales process. Alex Miller reports.
A bizarre twist late in the process of moving Sheffield Wednesday into new ownership saw Dejphon Chansiri’s camp narrowly miss a deadline to accept an offer that could have seen him receive hefty bonus payments sometime in the coming years, The Star can exclusively reveal.
The controversial Thai tuna heir oversaw a chaotic decade as owner of the Hillsborough club and amid spiralling financial issues and rising pressure from creditors, he placed the Owls into the hands of administrators in late October. After a long and winding process, US consortium Arise Capital Partners - led by businessman David Storch - have since taken on ownership of the club having been confirmed as new owners in front of a sold-out Hillsborough on Saturday.
The Star understands that as a result of discussions with the EFL over the satisfaction of their ‘minimum dividend’ rule, an offer was put forward to Chansiri that all parties felt was fair and reasonable considering the outright £16m he may have otherwise have expected out of the administration process. Other offers and approaches were made to the Thai over the lowering of his creditor claim.
The move came after strong suggestion from several sources with knowledge of the process throughout that Chansiri did not act in especially good faith and was not responsive to approaches before the final offer was put forward. The finite details of the offer are not known but are thought to have been broadly contingent on the future success of the club.
Alongside Chansiri’s lack of effective engagement in the process, it’s understood that the EFL saw the offer to be reasonable enough that they could apply discretion on the waiving of a 15-point deduction heading into next season.
The Star has learned that a deadline for an acceptance of that offer was put in place for midday yesterday, Tuesday May 5. It’s now understood that a response arrived back just a few minutes after that deadline suggesting Chansiri would like to accept - though as he missed the deadline, the offer is believed to be null and void.
Any course of action going forward or further steps to be taken on either side is not yet clear, but it would appear that Chansiri could stand to walk away from the club’s administration process without a penny from its actual sale.
Elsewhere, the sales process appears to be moving forward smoothly. It was confirmed on Sunday that the ‘transaction’ for Arise to buy the club was compete. On Wednesday lunchtime Companies House reflected that the charge hanging over Sheffield 3 had been satisfied in full. Sheffield 3 was the Chansiri-owned company that owned Hillsborough stadium and was placed into administration alongside the club itself.