Sunderland U21s have made a new addition to their ranks, another famous musician is on his way to the SoL next summer and a fellow Championship club are in a storm of financial problems as well as other bits of news are all included in today’s roundup.
U21S MAKE NEW SIGNING
Sunderland U21s have confirmed the capture of Kelechi Chibueze from Leicester City’s academy. The 19 year old goalkeeper has previously been involved with Chelsea’s youth system and has earned four caps for England U16s (he can also represent Nigeria if he chooses). Initially his contract will run until June 2024 but this can be extended for another season. Chibueze will compete with Adam Richardson for the number one role.
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN ANNOUNCES SOL CONCERT
The Stadium of Light will once again host Bruce Springsteen, with the last time being in 2012. The famous American rock singer is coming to Sunderland on Wednesday 22nd May 2024 as part of the Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band 2024 World Tour. Hospitality is available to purchase now from safc.com/concerts and Sunderland AFC season card holders will gain access to an exclusive presale at 10AM on Thursday, general sale will begin on Friday at 10AM. This will be great for our city, as during the concerts last summer the city centre was noticeably busier. It will also be fantastic for the club because it should hopefully bring in quite a bit of revenue.
SHEFFIELD WEDNESDAY’S AWFUL OWNER
Sheffield Wednesday continue to be held hostage by both financial issues and disgraceful ownership. News broke that Wednesday have been placed under a registration embargo due to owing money to HMRC. The reason why this money had not been coughed up was because their owner claimed his personal business-life meant he had no cash currently available to pay the bill. That’s an outrageous comment from someone running any sort of football club, especially one as big and historical as Sheffield Wednesday. It gets worse though. Some of the staff (both playing and non-playing) may receive delayed or partial wages and the owner has gone out to seek help to get the cash that’s desperately needed. From who you may ask? Well from his fans (or customers as he probably calls them). Chanisiri has asked 20,000 ‘negative supporters’ to each donate £100 to the club to cover the £2 million the Owls need to cover wages and the HMRC bill. Given that he thinks it’s acceptable to charge people nearly £50 for match tickets I don’t see how anyone in Sheffield has that kind of money left. This has got to be one of the worst examples of EFL ownership in history (and there have been some pretty bad ones) and unfortunately you can’t see it becoming anything but worse for the club. They look destined for the drop, with just six points and one win from their opening 14 games and relegation would see revenue fall and therefore it could become even more difficult to pay any debts or wages. Since they can’t register any new signings at the moment they can’t really save themselves in January either or indeed build a squad for a promotion push next season. Not to mention there is always the looming threat of points deductions. We should be thanking our lucky stars that we could rid of Donald and Methven before we turned out like this.
ROBERT MADLEY CONFIRMED AS REFEREE
Robert Madley has been confirmed as the referee for Saturday’s game away to Swansea. Don’t think he’s any different to the usual clowns in charge of officiating EFL fixtures. Earlier in the season there was an apology after Fred Onyedinma was wrongfully shown a yellow card, which resulted in him being sent off as he later received a second yellow, by Robert Madley. So brace yourselves for more awful decision making.
JUDE THANKS JOBE
A nice story to end this roundup. Jude Bellingham won the Kopa Trophy for World’s Best Young Player last night at the Ballon d’Or ceremony and thanked his brother and the rest of his family. ‘I want to thank my mum and my dad who are here tonight, my brother back home. Thank you for all the support. It means a lot and there's more to come.’
