Exclusive:Clarity on Sheffield Wednesday staff contract detail as key figure switches role
A key member of Danny Röhl’s backroom set-up at Sheffield Wednesday has had his role altered, The Star understands.
The Owls are in something of a state of flux heading into their return to pre-season training later this week, with many players still awaiting their May wage payments, improvements to their Middlewood Road training base still unfinished and speculation surrounding the make-up of the senior coaching team yet to be settled.
The Star has had no guarantees that manager Danny Röhl will be present at the early stages of their pre-season programme, with some well-placed sources indicating they do not expect him to be present. It serves as the headline query to a remarkably uncertain situation for a club heading into the start of their formal preparations for the upcoming campaign, with Röhl’s frontline staff out of contract at the end of the month and expected to leave S6.
Two men who are contracted beyond the end of June and are expected to continue their work into the summer, The Star understands, are Andy Parslow and Craig Chappell. Set piece specialist coach Parslow was brought in in September last year to some success after spells with Swansea City, Watford and Brentford, with chairman Dejphon Chansiri revealing at a fan forum in January that the appointment of a set piece coach was his idea.
Chappell, a popular background figure, was promoted to the role of team operations lead - a role created on the request of Röhl at the time of contract renewal negotiations in the summer of 2024. Chappell had previously worked in a similar role in the club’s academy set-up and proved a popular figure among the seniors, providing logistics on the organisation of team accommodation and travel for away games among other roles.
Now, The Star is led to believe that Chappell has been switched back to a role primarily within the academy. Given his importance to the Röhl set-up, the surprise move could provide an insight into the expected direction of the manager’s Wednesday future.
The Star revealed last month that Lewis Bush became the latest face to move on from the Owls’ analysis department, making the move to ambitious League One outfit Wycombe Wanderers. Key figures within the club’s medical and sports science departments are believed to remain under contract.