Soccer-IFR chair warns unsuitable club owners may have to sell up

Oct 9 (Reuters) – Sheffield Wednesday's financial crisis represents a "significant problem" for English football, according to the new chair of the Independent Football Regulator, who said that club owners deemed unsuitable could be forced to sell their teams as a last resort. The IFR was established to address growing concerns over governance and financial sustainability within English football. While the Premier League is regarded as the best in Europe, bolstered by substantial TV broadcasting revenues, the lower tiers of English football are struggling. Wednesday were charged by the English Football League (EFL) in June with multiple breaches of regulations after the second-tier club failed to pay players' wages on time. They sit second bottom in the Championship. The club have previously faced player registration embargoes and were docked six points during the 2020-21 season for breaching profit and sustainability rules. "Clearly Sheffield Wednesday has been a significant problem for EFL and a significant problem for football," IFR chair David Kogan told BBC Sport on Thursday. "Sheffield Wednesday is one of the great brands for English football and this week we have met Sheffield Wednesday supporters' groups. "We're now looking to get powers which will allow us to have Sheffield Wednesday — and other clubs — referred to us if they need to be investigated and acted upon." The IFR will have powers to operate a licensing scheme for the top-five levels, with licences subject to clubs meeting requirements regarding financial stability, owners' suitability, fan engagement and the protection of their heritage. "If your question is, 'would we intervene in the final instance?', the answer is once we gather the evidence and know what's going on, we will," Kogan said. "The last thing what we want to do is start getting involved with an individual club, an individual owner, without being able to work with that owner to try and resolve the issues that the club's facing and the owner's facing." (Reporting by Pearl Josephine Nazare in Bengaluru; Editing by Christian Radnedge)

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