Sheffield Wednesday captain, Barry Bannan, has opened up on how difficult things have been amid the club’s financial issues of late.
The Owls skipper has been a consummate professional throughout, training even when out of contract, and signing drastically reduced terms in order to remain at the club due to the constraints around new registrations after months of money problems. Over the weekend he scored a delightful freekick to help claim a first win of the season, and the 35-year-old has still got a huge role to play for the club.
Speaking on the Open Goal podcast this week, the Scot spoke about what the last few months have been like at Hillsborough, admitting that it’s been hard for him as captain – especially with the lack of proper communication routes for players looking for answers. Dejphon Chansiri hasn’t been heard from publicly in months.
“It’s been hard since the end of last season,” he said. “I think the first time we didn’t get paid on time was in March when we were in with a chance of the play-offs still. It was before Hull, we didn’t get paid that week, and then we lost in the last minute at Hillsborough and it kind of went downhill from there.
“And then in the summer it was like three months from four not getting paid, and not like days – it was like three or four weeks at a time. Then we were two months were behind, and as you can imagine the boys are on holiday with their families and there’s nobody at the club to contact to get hold of the chairman. So it’s just me and the chairman’s secretary. We’ve not really got people in jobs like a sporting director or whatever, so I was getting a load of phonecalls.
“And that’s not something I’ve really had to deal with, I just like getting out and playing football and leading by example on the pitch. I’m not necessarily an amazing captain off the pitch. And I was getting asked loads of questions which I didn’t know the answers to. So I spoke to the chairman, and he just kept telling me he was trying his hardest – which I’m sure he is – but we’re in a bad position. And it’s not nice. The games now help though, so we’re focused now on getting results and puts all that in the background.”
Wednesday’s players and staff aren’t far away from their next payday as we approach the end of the month, and concerns have been raised once again that those payments may not be made on time.
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