Sheffield Wednesday owner Dejphon Chansiri's FFP fear over letting Jordan Rhodes leave on a free to Norwich City
The Scottish striker spent the 2018-19 season on loan at the Canaries and was reportedly subject of a bid from the Premier League club last summer which left Wednesday's hierarchy incensed and was flatly rejected.
Rhodes has struggled to establish himself in the Owls starting line-up this season, although the former Middlesbrough, Blackburn Rovers and Huddersfield Town frontman did score a hat-trick in the 4-0 win at Nottingham Forest in December.
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Hide AdBut the Thai businessman says letting the 30-year-old leave for Carrow Road on a free would have made ‘no sense’.
“Norwich wanted to take Jordan Rhodes last summer but only on a free transfer,” said the Thai businessman on Yorkshire Live.
“This made no sense to us and would actually cause us more problems with FFP as we would have to pay all the outstanding balance on his transfer from Middlesbrough.
“So it was better for Jordan to stay here and try to make his way into the team and score some goals.
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Hide Ad“When he went to Norwich the previous year on loan, we wanted the deal to include a clause for them to buy in a similar way when we bought Jordan from Middlesbrough.
“This kind of deal is normal. But they did not want this option. Norwich did not even talk about buying Jordan, only a loan, but their sporting director in a later interview was saying many things that were not true, things that were negative to me and damaging to our club.”
Chansiri also hit back at rumours Wednesday had rejected offers on other players because the club was ‘demanding huge transfer fees or loan fees’ and insists ‘this is not true at all’.
He said the club had received bids for Fernando Forestieri and Keiren Westwood when Carlos Carvalhal was manager, but he believed the supporters would look at the Owls as a ‘selling club’ if it sold its best players.
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Hide Ad“We received a low offer for Fernando, then a player exchange and then the offer was higher,” he said.
“But with FFP becoming an issue, we could have been in a situation where we could not buy a replacement. Carlos did not want to sell Fernando and the transfer fee would have had to cover FFP, which it did not.”