⚽ Sheffield Wednesday Go Into Administration

When I first made this platform, I did a video on The Business of Inter Miami.

In that video, which you can watch HERE, I said one of their biggest priorities would be to secure Lionel Messi beyond his initial Inter Miami contract. Well, this week, Beckham and the crew have done exactly that.

Four days ago Messi signed a contract extension which will see him play in Miami all the way through to 2028. It’s a vital move for the “franchise” and for David Beckham as the deal ensures Messi will be there for the opening of their new stadium Freedom Park, which increases their capacity from 21,000 to 25,000.

So far, a trophy eludes the Messi project. If he can lead Inter Miami to silverware it validates Messi’s American chapter and his U.S. tenure will be considered a success by everyone.

Shoutout to Beckham for pulling it off, and to Messi for committing to the cause.

Sheffield Wednesday entered administration this week and were handed a 12-point deduction, leaving them bottom of the Championship on -6 points.

It’s another dark chapter in what’s been a disastrous few years for the club.

Since Dejphon Chansiri took over in 2015, Wednesday have lost £121m over nine full seasons. The crazy thing being that figure would have been £39m higher had Chansiri not sold Hillsborough to another company he owned in 2019 to avoid breaching financial rules.

The Athletic report that wages have been unpaid for 5 of the last 6 months at the club with players, coaches and backroom staff all affected.

The final trigger came when HMRC filed a winding-up petition over unpaid tax bills totalling £1m, forcing Chansiri to place the club into administration.

I’m a free-market capitalist by nature but I am conflicted with Sheffield Wednesday. I believe they should have been forced to sell months ago.

Even if this ends with a new owner and some form of stability (not sure what that looks like for Wednesday at this point), it is a warning shot to English football as a whole. Financial regulation is coming, and it is needed. The incoming “Independent” Football Regulator (IFR), led by a chap called David Kogan, has said it will have the power to force unsuitable owners to sell. That is a start, but what is less clear to me is how clubs are supposed to survive financially during those ownership transitions. For example, who is going to pay the players now?

Administration is painful, but it might also be the beginning of the end of this nightmare for Sheffield Wednesday. Once the process concludes, a new owner will almost certainly emerge. That will at least give the fans some light at the end of the tunnel.

For a club of Sheffield Wednesday’s size and history, it’s remarkable they’ve survived this long at Championship level. That point deduction though, will almost certainly relegate them to League 1.

Sad all round.

Finally, La Liga’s plan to host a league match in Miami… has collapsed.

The league faced strong backlash from fans when it was announced. Players started to speak up as I mentioned two weeks ago. Then, players started to protest. All players stood still for the first 15 seconds of all league matches in the previous gameweek.

Off-the-pitch, the heat got so hot, they pulled the plug on the entire thing.

It’s a PR disaster for league and for the leagues President Javier Tebas. The whole project was framed as a bold step toward “globalisation” but fans saw it as a cynical cash grab and the players questioned the sporting integrity.

It quickly became clear that the stakeholders who actually matter weren’t on board.

I said this last week and I’ll say it again. Players have more power than it seems. There’s only so far you can push powerful people, and this game was clearly a step too far.

Let’s see if the energy is the same in Italy. Serie A recently announced that Como and AC Milan will play each other in Perth in February!

I love this game I swear.

See you next week.