Simon Jordan tells boxing supremo Turki Alalshikh to buy Championship 'powerhouse'

Former owner has revealed that he has advised Turki Alalshikh to buy , with fan groups .

Wednesday have been owned by the Thai tuna magnate for more than a decade and, after initial investment saw the club come close to reaching the , they have been beset by chaos in recent years which has included a points deduction, transfer embargo and relegation to League One.

And it has now emerged that Alalshikh, who is the Chairman of Saudi Arabia's General Authority for Entertainment and has led the Gulf state's heavy investment in , is looking to buy an English football club.

When asked if he is part of a consortium interested in buying Wednesday, Jordan told : "No, but it's a club that I will always speak about because I look at that football club and wonder why it's languishing.

"I wondered why it languished under the various management that was there when I was involved at Palace because it has such scale. Every time I'm asked if I were interested in getting involved in building a football club up to give it an opportunity, I always reference Sheffield Wednesday.

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"I had the same conversation with Turki Alalshikh because they're looking around at other things to do. Whilst I would prefer English clubs to be owned by English people, that ship has sailed.

"So when I'm asked by these guys 'what English football club would you advocate for us to buy', I said if you're not going to buy one of the legacy clubs which is , or Man United, the next one down is .

"See if you can get a big deal out of Daniel [Levy] for that because that's a spaceship that perhaps just needs a new captain. But if I were buying a football club and I was really motivated and I had your kind of dough, I would buy Sheffield Wednesday."

When asked if that was what he said to Al-Sheikh, Jordan replied: "I told him that, yeah. We'll see what they do, they're captains of their own ship aren't they. We've already got enough foreign investment in our football, but that's the way I would go.

"It's got scale. It's a big football club. There's a reason that Hillsborough was used as the stadium that semi-finals were played at. I've been to that club, I've watched it, I've seen the fanbase.

"I know the Saudis can look across the City at Sheffield United and think their mate who owned that particular football club hasn't had the greatest of times over there, but I think it's a powerhouse.

"I said to him 'if you got that right, they'd put a bloody statue of you in the town'. If you buy a London football club you've got a whole raft of challenges, but if you buy a powerhouse like Sheffield Wednesday that's in Yorkshire as a football club that could be pushed forward...

"No disrespect to Chansiri, but somehow he's managed to steal defeat from the jaws of victory with this powerhouse of a football club."

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