Sheffield Wednesday’s preferred bidder James Bord’s bid to take control of the club ‘will take crucial time’, says Alan Nixonwith Bord’s finances tracing back to Bahrain.
James Bord is Sheffield Wednesday’s preferred bidder. The club’s board will undoubtedly hope that a deal can be completed quickly now that SWFC enters the January transfer period with a worn-out selection.
Sheffield Wednesday’s injury list is long and seems to be constantly growing. Alan Nixon reported last week that the Owls may be forced to sell some of their key player assets in January simply to stay afloat until administrators can install the new owners.
Nixon has now shared a new update on the situation, and it is somewhat concerning regarding Bord’s bid, and possibly his financing as well.
James Bord’s Sheffield Wednesday attempt to take ‘vital time’ as Bahraini finances revealed
Nixon writes on Patreon that the SWFC bidders face ‘a lengthy test from the EFL’ regarding their funding, and that said tests will eat up a lot of time that Sheffield Wednesday doesn’t really have.
It is understood that Bord has ‘foreign money behind it and a significant part of it can be traced back to Bahrain’, with Nixon citing the previous case study of Wigan Athletic as a reason why the EFL might look particularly critically at Bord’s bid to buy Sheffield Wednesday.
The Owls’ administrators, Begbies Traynor, were the administrators of Wigan Athletic in 2020. The club was sold to Bahraini businessman Abdulrahman Al-Jasmi, but was sold again in 2023 after the short-term owners of the Latics failed to pay players’ wages and HMRC. Nixon writes that Begbies Traynor ‘reviewed to confirm the Bahraini element in the deal’ at SWFC.
Importantly, Nixon argues that the Bord consortium’s finances ‘shouldn’t be an issue’, but insists this will take a lot of time, probably because of the source of the money and because Begbies Traynor was previously put in similar circumstances at Wigan Athletic.
What the EFL says about the owners and directors test
While SWFC fans want the EFL to do their due diligence on Bord and avoid another Dejphon Chansiri-like situation at the club, Sheffield Wednesday do not have enough time or money to let the EFL wait too long to investigate Bord and his bid to buy the club.
On the official EFL websitethey write of the Owners’ and Directors’ Test: “Ultimately, each acquisition of control will be unique and have different circumstances each time. Some will be simpler, while others may take longer due to increased complexity – for example, the number of investors, structure, origin of investments and a range of factors can influence the process timeline.”
Because Bord’s bid comes from a consortium of investors and the money traces back to Bahrain, this suggests the EFL may have to take more time to analyze all aspects of the bid, as Nixon suggests, which could leave SWFC in murky waters in the first half of 2026.
Nevertheless, the Owls are on their way to finding a new owner, but time is absolutely of the essence.
#Sheffield #Wednesdays #takeover #faces #potential #problem #revelations #James #Bords #finances