Exclusive:Sheffield Wednesday honing in on sporting director signing - with Championship name ruled out
Things are moving forward behind the scenes at Sheffield Wednesday as the club’s new owners look to continue their early efforts on the rebuild of the club.
Sheffield Wednesday are making rapid progress with the important addition of a sporting director, The Star understands, as the club’s new owners look to put in place a proper structure to guide their ambitious rebuild project.
A US consortium led by David Storch completed their takeover of the club last weekend and have embarked on the early stages of a vast process to bring the club to better health both on and off the pitch. Work on improving the safety and viability of the club’s stadium is underway, with millions set to be spent on Hillsborough in the coming weeks and months.
The appointment of a CEO in former Sunderland figure David Bruce has been warmly received. Bruce is known to have been working around the clock in his early days in the role as first steps are taken to improve the club’s infrastructure.
Another key appointment will come in the form of a sporting director. No such role was created during Dejphon Chansiri’s time with the club, leaving a string of managers and backroom staff undertaking additional roles while transfer and football policies shifted as one man replaced the next.
The Star understands that there has been major progress on the signing of a sporting director and that talks to bring in a new face are coming to a close, with an appointment expected sooner rather than later. The identity of the mystery front-runner is not yet known, though sources have indicated that the appointment will not be Portsmouth equivalent Rich Hughes, who is believed to have been the subject of some form of exploratory discussion over the role. The Owls are understood to be looking at a candidate elsewhere.
A swathe of big decisions await the new sporting director once in place. A host of contract calls must be made on senior players approaching the end of their current deals sooner rather than later, while a busy summer transfer window awaits as the club look to repair a squad decimated by sales and departures in the last two transfer windows. The club are believed to be keen on offering new deals to Max Lowe and Svante Ingelsson, with other situations not fully resolved.
Posting to social media on Sunday, new chairman Storch said he, Bruce and Michael Storch had undertaken meetings to continue to accelerate their progress on a number of matters. He said in part that the trio had ‘met with the leadership team advancing our plans for the training pitch, summer training schedule for the squad, spent time assessing current squad, addressed multiple work plans for Hillsborough.’