Simon Jordan urges billionaire Turki Alalshikh to buy 'powerhouse' Sheffield Wednesday from Dejphon Chansiri
Former Crystal Palace owner Simon Jordan has urged Saudi billionaire Turki Alalshikh to buy Sheffield Wednesday.
Alalshikh is the chairman of Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority and has invested heavily in British boxing.
He is yet to dip his toe into English football, but Jordan has made the case for a purchase of controversy-ridden Championship club Wednesday.
Jordan himself has been linked with the Owls in the past but has scotched rumours and instead explained how he has discussed the club with Alalshikh.
Speaking on talkSPORT: “No [I am not buying Wednesday], but it’s a club that I always speak about because I look at it and wonder why it’s languishing.
“I don’t have any burning ambition. I didn’t have fun the first time round with a club I loved but what I do have is a huge amount of knowledge about failure and success.
“I had the same conversation, without being too indiscreet, with Turki Alalshikh, because they are looking around at other things to do.
“Whilst I would prefer English clubs to be owned by English people because I’ve got a great pride in my own country, that ship has sailed, that horse has bolted.
“So when I’m asked by these guys ‘what English football club would you advocate for us to buy?’, I said if you’re not going to buy one of the legacy clubs of which there’s three in this country – Liverpool, Arsenal and Manchester United – the next one down the rank is Tottenham, see if you can get a deal out of Daniel [Levy, Spurs owner] for that because that’s a spaceship that needs a new captain.
“If I was buying a football club and I was really motivated and had your kind of dough, I would buy Sheffield Wednesday.”
The Owls have been owned by Dejphon Chansiri since 2015 and there was promise in the early stages of his reign.
However, recent years have been marred by turbulence and he has become an unpopular figure among the Hillsborough faithful.
In a recent defeat to Oxford United, the home fans turned their back on play for a minute in protest against Chansiri’s ownership.
Jordan said: “It’s got scale, it’s a big football club. There’s a reason why Hillsborough got used up to a point, for FA Cup semi-finals.
“If you got that right, as I said to him, they’d put a statue of you in the town. You buy a powerhouse like Sheffield Wednesday that’s in Yorkshire, not just Sheffield that could be garnered and pushed forward, no disrespect to Chansiri but somehow or another he’s managed to steal defeat from the jaws of victory.”