On the latest episode of The Price of Football podcast, football finance expert Kieran Maguire has spent some time discussing the latest situation at Sheffield Wednesday with regards to the ownership of Hillsborough and the issues currently surrounding it.
The recent episode dedicated a lot of time to the worrying situation at the Sheffield club, who were deducted 12 points at the start of the season, although a decent start to the new campaign has seen them pick up five points from the first four matches (per BBC). The EFL statement following the initial ruling said that Wednesday “should not have included profits from the sale of Hillsborough Stadium in the club’s financial statements for the period ending July 2018” (per Sky Sports).
Here’s what Maguire had to say about the situation during the podcast:
“They have sold the stadium to this other company called ‘Sheffield 3’. The trouble was, is that they said that that happened in 2018 and the EFL said, ‘no it didn’t.’ That was the crux of the argument. Sheffield Wednesday are appealing [the charges], by the way. So it could be that the 12-point deduction is reversed.
“So the EFL, as far as they’re concerned, they’ve proven that it took place between 2018 and 2019 and therefore, it doesn’t count for the June 2018 account. So we’re still awaiting that particular issue to be resolved. So the ground certainly has been sold – when it was sold, that’s another issue.
“Then to have this mortgage, it could be that the mortgage is only for a few quid, and then we all kind of go, ‘this is a complete non-issue.’ If the club just said it’s a £3 million mortgage because we’ve just gone and signed Kenneth Zohore from another club and we needed to put a down payment for his loan fee, [they could go], ‘okay, it’s fine.'”
TIF Thoughts…
From what Maguire suggests, the EFL and Sheffield Wednesday are still disagreeing when the stadium was sold – and if that issue is resolved, then we could perhaps see the decision to deduct the Owls 12 points reversed, provided that the Sheffield club can convince the EFL that they have done nothing wrong in this instance.
Do you think the deduction could be reversed?
Yes
No
For now, though, the Owls will have to focus on getting themselves out of the relegation places as quickly as possible, with a trip to Birmingham City next up for Garry Monk’s side.