Ex-Sheffield Wednesday player turned agent details strain of dealing with Dejphon Chansiri

Ongoing financial struggles see Wednesday players and non-footballing staff left unpaid in full for the month of May, the club in the clutches of transfer restrictions and owner Dejphon Chansiri charged by the EFL along with the club itself. With the weeks whittling down towards the start of the new Championship season, the landscape on the immediate future looks of grave concern.

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Jon Newsome had two spells with his boyhood club, representing them in the Premier League the second time around having risen through the ranks in the halcyon days of Howard Wilkinson and Ron Atkinson as a youngster. After retirement in 2000, he went on to become a scout and now works a radio summariser and football agent for a number of young players. Speaking at the Sheffield Wednesday Supporters Trust Fan Forum event on Wednesday evening, Newsome spoke as a Wednesdayite first and foremost - and was scathing in his description of Chansiri.

“This football club goes back a long way, a lot longer than since any of us have been around,” he said. “And we’ve got a tyrant, a narcissist in charge. He’s running the club into the ground.

“My concern is what happens next..”

“As we found out when Covid hit and we went into lockdown, football is nothing without supporters. Those empty stadiums? Football is nothing without supporters. It’s not just Chansiri, but as soon as these guys who are coming in and buying football clubs realise that the heart, blood and lifeline is you guys - the better.

“My concern is what happens next. The biggest thing for me is that there is such a lack of information coming out of the football club. They’ve been late paying the ages time and time again. This one feels different for me, it’s two weeks since the wages were due. I got confirmation from one of the first team lads last night that he’d definitely not been paid. He’s got two weeks to pay people because of the FIFA regulations... Otherwise those players can terminate their contracts and walk out of the door.”

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Newsome has had business dealings with Wednesday previously and tried to get a client into the youth ranks at S6 during the summer of 2023. He spoke of a struggle in working the way Chansiri laid things out, describing the process as ‘banging your head against a brick wall’. The Star have previously reported the struggle of agents in securing what would appear to be simple deals.

“I’ve tried to deal with him,” Newsome told the room. “I work as an agent as well as doing some football media stuff. I’ve tried to deal with the football club a couple of years ago and it’s banging your head against a brick wall, the hurdles you have to overcome. It was the same trying to get a player into the club, the clauses, the addendums in them. From my point of view they are made by non-football people, he comes up with an idea and he wants to put it in, but he doesn’t think it through.”

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