Martin Samuels in the The Times has published an article about 'How to stop rogue football club owners'
https://www.thetimes.com/sport/football/article/football-club-owners-martin-samuel-0rplt0w9q
How to stop rogue football club owners: take their keys
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We spend so much time finding ways to punish investment and ambition in football, yet the real menace goes ignored. Why is it so hard to target the actual culprits?
Martin Samuel
Saturday July 05 2025, 6.00pm BST, The Sunday Times
Just take the club off them. Dejphon Chansiri at Sheffield Wednesday, Acun Ilicali at Hull City. When you cannot pay the players, when you cannot cover your transfer commitments, that should be an end to it. We spend so much time, in football, finding ways to punish investment and ambition, yet the real menace goes ignored.
Once an owner cannot pay the staff, or another club its money owed, the league should have the power to seize the asset and call in administrators. Not to shut the club down, because that punishes the wrong people — the fans, the employees — but to run it in such a way that commitments are met.
To ensure there is money to cover wages; to guarantee all responsibilities to the industry. If the league does not have the will to do this, then a government regulator should. If we are going to have one, at least give it teeth to address a real problem. Rogue owners are football’s blight. Not ambition.
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Sheffield Wednesday supporters held protests against owner Chansiri last season
GEORGE WOOD/GETTY IMAGES
As it is, supporters at two clubs with a history dating back a combined 278 years find themselves in the same position as fans of Reading until recently, not knowing if they will have a team to follow at all next season. Sheffield Wednesday players are handing in their notice after wages, again, were not paid. Hull have been banned from signing players across three transfer windows after failing to pay Aston Villa more than £1million from the loan deal for Louie Barry.
Taking over the club may seem a harsh reaction for one misdemeanour, but defaulting on expected payments is not a small offence. Villa have financial pressures of their own. Not receiving the money expected for Barry could have an impact on their finances, too. And while £1million does not appear a significant shortfall at a Premier League club, if Hull defaulted on a player from League Two, say, it could be catastrophic. That is why football debts are prioritised when clubs go into conventional administration. It is to maintain this very delicate economic system.
Football has its priorities wrong. Leicester City are being pursued to the ends of the earth, but there is no question the club cannot meet its wage bill or pay its transfer debts. What is happening at Wednesday and Hull contains considerably more jeopardy.
It was interesting that when
Uefa punished Chelsea and Aston Villa on Friday for breaking financial rules, the sanctions were largely financial and intended to deter, not destroy. Too much of what English football sets out to do puts clubs on the brink — as happened with Everton — yet truly dangerous stewardship is met with scant limitation from those on high. As fans despaired, how long was Dai Yongge allowed to steer Reading towards an iceberg before a deal to sell the club was done? It should not have been his club to sell. Once he began missing wage payments Reading should have been removed from his control and run by a third party, appointed by the EFL. They should then have overseen Reading’s transfer into new ownership, paying Yongge only after all other debts had been settled.
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Chelsea, who won the Conference League last season, were fined £27million by Uefa for breaching its financial rules
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It would seem the new regulator intends to operate a licence system, but fans don’t want to lose their club. What if a regulator had revoked Reading’s licence, what good would that have done? The campaigners would have been left with no club to support, the schedules and standings of League One would have been spoiled. And for what? The protesters did not want Reading shut, they wanted Yongge out. It’s the same at Sheffield Wednesday, where fans have been calling on Chansiri to sell up and go all season.
A points deduction seems sure to follow, but again that seems to hit innocent parties: coaches, players and the fans once more, who never asked for their club to be made less competitive, or ruined. Why is it so hard to target the actual culprits? Take the keys, and it’s done.
