Dejphon Chansiri made desperate call to Mayor in bid to buy more time with Sheffield Wednesday.

By Gbam Godwin On Oct 29, 2025

Dejphon Chansiri made desperate call to Mayor in bid to buy more time with Sheffield Wednesday.

A Sheffield MP has disclosed that former Sheffield Wednesday chairman Dejphon Chansiri contacted South Yorkshire Mayor Oliver Coppard in a desperate attempt to keep the club.

The unsuccessful Thai owner was compelled to put the club into administration last week due to pressure from HMRC over a winding-up petition.

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While Chansiri retains ownership in name, he has delegated authority to administrators at Begbies Traynor LLP, who have taken a positive and proactive approach to re-engaging the club’s fan base following months of protests against Chansiri.

Sheffield South East MP Clive Betts, a long-time Wednesdayite, has been present throughout the dispute, and The Star believes he played a vital role in the crucial late-day manoeuvres that forced the former Owls chairman to eventually – and grudgingly – sign administration papers.

Betts spoke in Parliament several times to raise awareness of fan concerns over Chansiri’s incompetence to run the club and advocate for its protection.

Betts spoke with The Star’s Joe Crann on the current episode of the ‘All Wednesday’ YouTube channel, where he praised Owls supporters’ dedication both before and after the administration was confirmed, as well as commenting on the mismanagement of the Chansiri decade.

“It’s a failure of 10 years of mismanagement by Chansiri, that’s the reality,” he told me. “Now that he’s gone, we have hope and the opportunity to better plan for the future.” The club’s supporter base has been a guiding force throughout this.

The Sheffield Wednesday Supporters Trust was the driving force behind the boycotts; what club could have pulled off such a successful boycott against Middlesbrough on Wednesday?

Two days later, they’re waiting around the block in the club shop, with half a million pounds handed over in quick succession, since fans are keen to express their support for a new regime. That is really wonderful.

Betts, a Labour MP in the city since 1992, collaborated with the Supporters Trust and others during the final months of the anti-Chansiri campaign.

While he did not go into detail about his involvement in the latter stages of the campaign to transition the club from his ownership, The Star understands that he played a significant role in doing so.

Sheffield South East MP Clive Betts worked to protect Sheffield Wednesday from the failed ownership of Dejphon Chansiri.

“I was pushing HMRC initially to get them to take some action,” he admitted. “It seemed incredible to me that we all have to pay our taxes and the tax man comes to demand it if we don’t; yet Chansiri apparently was owing a million pounds and nothing much was happening.”

Then the potential of administration arose, and I was suggesting to the taxman, via friendly sources – let’s put it that way – in government, that it might be better if they simply delayed for a little bit, since administration was a cleaner route forward.

The administration worked quite hard to persuade Chansiri. They admitted that he was a difficult individual to deal with. But we’ve all had that experience, haven’t we?

Betts was also able to corroborate suspicions that Chansiri had contacted South Yorkshire Mayor Oliver Coppard in a last-ditch bid to relieve pressure from HMRC and buy himself more time to work his way out of a precarious situation.

It came after Sheffield MPs attempted to interact with him through an open letter several months ago, but were roundly rebuffed.