All quiet on the Wednesday Front: Sheffield Wednesday silence amid Dejphon Chansiri chaos

The Owls are in turmoil. The fixtures for the 2025/26 season will be announced in 10 days, and preseason is due to start not long after. Yet as things stand there are players who remain unpaid, no friendlies confirmed, and radio silence from the man at the top – Dejphon Chansiri.

Since it became clear on May 30th that, for the second time in three months, there had been a delay in payments at Hillsborough, we’ve heard nothing from the Wednesday chairman and owner. A short note saying that he ‘sincerely apologises to all players, coaches and staff affected and everyone connected with the club’ is the closest we’ve got, and even that wasn’t a direct quote.

Here at The Star we have players, unpaid for two weeks, asking us what’s going on. Staff have been in contact desperately trying to find out if we have any information that they might not, and agents, coming to us looking for answers on behalf of their clients because they can’t get anything out of the club. The lack of communication internally is bad enough, and externally the fans – the lifeblood of Sheffield Wednesday – have been left completely in the dark.

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The only thing we know for sure, really, is that wages remain unpaid and that Wednesday remain under embargo. The latter won’t change until the former does. Wednesday and Chansiri have been charged by the English Football League and have two weeks to respond – that deadline is tomorrow. The chances are we’ll not find out what that response was.

It's 53 days until the new season gets underway, the Owls’ third back in the Championship, and there isn’t even any certainty that their manager will be in situ by the time it does. Danny Röhl has been linked with clubs all over England and Germany, and with the current state of things who could blame him for looking elsewhere?

Club captain, Barry Bannan, has made his position on staying at Hillsborough beyond the end of his contract very clear – he wants to retire at S6. Yet two weeks before his deal expires, nothing has been signed.

Sheffield Wednesday carnage is creating a vacuum

And when there’s a vacuum, something has to fill it. Conspiracies, fan theories, ITKers with cryptic viewpoints. Sometimes just blind optimism that silence means something is happening. It doesn’t.

It all sees anger misplaced, too… Fans doing their best to bring people together, doing their bit to try and save their football club, are ridiculed too. In-fighting is rampant, when a united front is what Sheffield Wednesday need right now.

We’ve had statements before, lengthy ones, triggered by far less than two weeks wages and the threat of who-knows-what punishment from the EFL. Yet now, with the club in the most precarious position of Chansiri’s tenure, there’s not a word.

Anything would be something at this point. Even if it was just an apology to the fans who’ve poured their own hard-earned money into the football club that they love. They’ve been through enough, it’s the least they deserve.

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