Exclusive:Ike Ugbo deal, Macron, council tax and Amadeu Paixao - The eye-watering sums Sheffield Wednesday owe explained
Sheffield Wednesday still owe French club Troyes nearly £2m for the purchase of Ike Ugbo, The Star can reveal, with the French club sitting among a wide range of creditors with debts outstanding.
The Owls were put into administration in October as Dejphon Chansiri found himself under rising pressure from creditors including HMRC and New Avenue Projects. Some 128 days on, the club remains in administration after the collapse of the preferred bid of a consortium led by James Bord, with Begbies Traynor leading an ‘expediated process’ to secure Wednesday a new owner.
A document of administrator’s proposals sent to creditors on Friday reveals the club owes money to 193 trade creditors in total. Many of them pertain to the day-to-day running of the club and include supplier of matchday food and beverages, ground maintenance, small business media groups, power suppliers, individual freelancers, laundry companies, travel providers, construction firms, hoteliers, stewarding companies and other local suppliers of goods and services.
These unsecured creditors should receive a sum of 25 pence on the pound for the club to satisfy EFL rules and avoid a 15-point deduction heading into next season in League One. After the collapse of the Bord takeover attempt, which Begbies Traynor confirmed have been built on a bid of £47.5m, that is looking unlikely as things stand.
Among the other unsecured creditors of interest are Sheffield City Council, who are owed a touch under £180k in tax and other fees. South Yorkshire Police are owed a little under £40k.
Wednesday would appear to owe three clubs fees from outstanding transfer arrangements, with a sum of £1.9m owed to Troyes for the 2024 transfer of misfiring forward Ike Ugbo. Around £380k is owed to Polish side Arka Gdynia for the signing of Olaf Kobacki and £47.5k is outstanding for the movements of a player who has since come and gone - to PSG for Rangers forward Djeidi Gassama.
As previously reported by The Star, the club moved to pay off a sum of money for fees relating to transfer from other clubs - believed to be those of Ugbo and Yan Valery from SC Angers - which were centrally fees owed to football authorities for the make-up of the deal. This was done to avoid the threat of further recruitment restriction sanctions and in the proposal confirms nearly £90k of outstanding fees were paid to achieve this.
The proposal reads in part: “During the trading period, payments totalling £89,192 were made in respect of FIFA-related obligations. These sums relate to regulatory charges, compliance-based contributions and any penalties or levies imposed under the applicable football governance framework. These payments were required in order to lift the FIFA embargo that had been imposed on the Club, ensuring that registrations and other footballing activities could continue without further restriction.”
The club owe hefty sums to a number of football agencies, the largest being CCA Base at nearly £112k. Agencies are not generally classed as football creditors.
A whopping £1.3m is listed as owed to kitwear provider Macron, though it is explained in another section of the proposal that this figure may need updating in time due to the arrangement of their kit deal. Macron are among the unsecured creditors.
It reads in part: “The Company currently operates under an agreement with Macron whereby the Club pays a fixed price per kit supplied, and Macron, in turn, pays the Club a reverse-sponsorship contribution in scheduled instalments across the season. The associated income and costs arising from this arrangement have not yet been reflected in the receipts and payments account, but further details will be provided in future reports once all relevant journals have been processed.”
EFL rules say HMRC and football creditors must be paid in full to effectively receive clearance to enter their competitions - including league football. The proposal makes clear football creditors are owed a total of £2,625,628, with HMRC owed a touch over £1.6m. New Avenue Projects, whose holding is in Hillsborough Stadium, are owed around £7.5m and should expect to be paid in full as they hold security on the ground. Unsecured creditors will receive pence on the pound of what is owed.
The proposal confirms the understanding that Dejphon Chansiri has submitted an unsecured claim of £63,140,000 in respect of his in-credit Director's Loan Account, for which he will now receive pence on the pound. As revealed by The Star, there is £3.7m owed to agent Luis Miguel Azevedo Povoa Alves, who was involved in deals to bring Marco Matias and Momo Diaby to Wednesday suring Chansiri’s reign. Amadeu Paixao has claimed £2,680. Total creditor claims total £81.4m.