Would-be Sheffield Wednesday owner and ex-Sheffield United advisor James Bord to buy French giant club for €1
James Bord is a well-known name in the Sheffield football scene.
A former professional poker player who came close to buying Sheffield Wednesday is set to acquire one of France’s biggest clubs, according to reports.
James Bord led a consortium that was given preferred bidder status during the Owls’ administration process last year - before ultimately withdrawing in February, which allowed David Storch’s Arise Capital Partners group to take the club on. Bord had earlier acted as an advisor to Sheffield United and is believed to have played an influential role in the decision to appoint Ruben Selles last summer - as well as guiding the Blades ownership on several big-money signings.
It was reported in July that Bord’s ‘Park Bench LLP’ group, which has existing stakes in clubs in Spain, Bulgaria and Scotland, was mounting a bid to rescue French club Girondins de Bordeaux, who won Ligue 1 as recently as the 2008/09 season and reached the quarter-finals of the Champions League the year after.
The crisis-stricken club have collapsed from Ligue 1 to the brink of extinction. After Gérard Lopez’s 2021 takeover, poor results and chronic overspending produced successive relegations, 2024 administration, loss of professional status and a drop to National 2. In June 2026 the DNCG barred the club from all national competitions for failing to produce required funds; appeals to the FFF and courts failed, sending Bordeaux to Régional 1 - France’s sixth tier - and raising the threat of liquidation.
It has been announced that an agreement was reached for Park Bench LLP to buy the club from Lopez for a symbolic euro, halve debts from €26m to €13m and stretch the continuation plan to 12 years. Court and league approval is still needed and after suspension, the first team hopes to begin league play in mid-October.
Park Bench, which owns Scottish Premiership club Dunfermline among others, are not the body through which Bord intended to purchase Wednesday. The Vegas-based, London-born entrepreneur was partnered with crypto casino businessman Felix Romer and Abdullah Faisal Bin Jamil, a distant member of the Jordanian royal family.
As revealed by The Star, the group withdrew from the process to buy the Owls on February 25 citing an initial oversight on the finances required to adequately improve Hillsborough stadium. That withdrawal is also understood to have come amid stringent vetting checks by the IFR - and shortly after a tranche of further information was requested with regard to the bid’s funding.
Bord owns football analysis firm Short Circuit Science and his model was publicly acknowledged to have led on the Sheffield United signings Jefferson Cáceres, Christian Nwachukwu and Mihail Polendakov - all of whom have since moved on having failed to make a senior competitive appearance for the Blades. Some of ‘his’ further signings are understood to include the likes of Ehije Ukaki and Nils Zätterström, who have both also since been moved on.
Bord has had more reasonable success with Spanish club Córdoba CF and also owns Septemvri Sofia in Bulgaria.