The net worth of Sheffield Wednesday owner Dejphon Chansiri as concerning Owls update is revealed | OneFootball

The Owls players are still unpaid for March.

Over the course of his near 10-year stay at the helm of Sheffield Wednesday, there has been plenty of friction between Dejphon Chansiri and the club’s fans.

Chansiri, who claimed back in 2018 that he was willing to put the club up for sale if the fans wanted him to, has come under fire on plenty of occasions for the way in which he handles the club.

The Owls spent part of this season under a player registration embargo as a result of accounts owed to HMRC, then, in January, Chansiri abruptly announced that popular midfielder Shea Charles had been recalled by Southampton at the end of a particularly fiery fans’ forum.

The latest in a long line of the Thai businessman’s misdemeanours came earlier this week, when it was announced that the club had failed to pay the players’ wages for March, due to cashflow problems with Chansiri’s other companies.

The club stated that it would be a temporary issue and attributed it to a series of debts owed to the owner’s businesses.

With that in mind, Football League World takes a look at Chansiri’s net worth, amid Wednesday’s ongoing issues.

Dejphon Chansiri’s net worth

While there is no current, definitive figure for Chansiri’s net worth, his wealth is closely tied to that of the Thai Union Group, which is chaired by his dad and run by his brother.

Back in 2020, the Thai family were estimated by Forbes to have a net worth of around $575million, largely thanks to their business, which had an estimated revenue of $4.2billion.

According to Forbes, Thai Union Group is the world’s largest producer of canned tuna and, while that is likely to be where the bulk of the Wednesday owner’s wealth comes from, he also has plenty of other ventures in the business world.

Chansiri has previously owned construction and property companies in Thailand, and also has control of Elev8, who used to make the Owls’ training kits.

When news broke of Wednesday’s failure to pay the players on time earlier this week, the club said this in their official statement: “This has occurred as a result of significant sums of money owed to the chairman’s businesses, which has in turn impacted on the club’s immediate cashflow.

“The chairman is working hard to resolve this situation at the earliest possible opportunity and in the meantime, thanks everyone for their patience and understanding.”

Given the array of companies that Chansiri is involved in, it’s certainly possible that these cashflow issues could be quite troublesome to sort out.

Chansiri’s ownership of Wednesday has brought plenty of issues

Ever since he purchased the Sheffield club for a reported £37.5million back in 2015, Chansiri’s time in charge has brought near-constant challenges behind the scenes.

According to The Athletic, in 2019, Wednesday were charged by the EFL for breaching PSR rules during the sale of Hillsborough to Chansiri. This charge came after the club had spent the previous two transfer windows under a soft embargo for failing to comply with the Football League’s financial regulations.

Even when Danny Rohl arrived at the Owls back in October 2023, the club were put under a transfer embargo less than one month after he joined.

Unsurprisingly, these issues have brought numerous protests from fans towards Chansiri’s ownership, and the relationship between the two has been fraught for the most part.

In 2019, the Thai insinuated that it was the fans who were choosing to take issues with some of the things he had said. He told the Sheffield Star: “I have to laugh sometimes when some fans say I’m not transparent and honest.

“I am always as honest as I can be with the fans, but some only want to hear what they want to hear.

“I always say the truth, even when they are not things the fans are going to like.”

Given the fact that Wednesday are arguably still in the mix for a potential play-off berth at the end of the season, this latest issue with their owner couldn’t have come at a worse time.

If popular boss Danny Rohl is to leave the club at the end of the season, it will surely be partially due to the difficulties of working with Chansiri. If that scenario does come to pass for Wednesday, it could damage the relationship between the owner and the fans beyond any repair.