An article in today's Daily Mail accuses owls Director Keith Addy of racism.

Addy, 72, a retired managing director of a property development company, and a director of Sheffield Wednesday has been accused by the Daily Mail of:

"disgraceful racially derogatory terms in a telephone conversation with one of their employees about a football club matter. The alleged slur is said to be even worse than the 'monkey' jibe that has left India's cricket tour of Australia in chaos."

The complaint was orinally made after a conversation with an employee at the Sheffield Chamber of Commerce. The chamber said it then brought the issue to the attention of Sheffield Wednesday officials. Sheffield Wednesday then confirmed an investigation had started.

Chamber of Commerce chief executive Nigel Tomlinson said: "A complaint has been made by a chamber employee about the use of a racially derogative term during a telephone call with a senior representative of Sheffield Wednesday football club.

"The chamber takes such allegations extremely seriously, both because of the nature of such a complaint and also through its duty of care to its employees.

Ironically, Addy was one of 5 club directors who took legal action against Neil Hargreaves who runs a fan discussion site called Owlstalk.co.uk.

They wanted an order from the court to force Hargreaves to identify 11 members of his site whom they accused of pursuing a "sustained campaign of vilification" against them.

How ironic then that, if indeed true, Addy himself should commit racial vilification - pardon the pun but far worse than the pot calling the kettle...

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Depute Judge Richard Parkes QC said that postings on a Sheffield Wednesday fansite related to the clubs management spending club funds on prostitutes were "unlikely to be taken seriousley" and were "barely defamatory or little more than abusive or likely to be understood as jokes." Other comments were deemed to be ""no more than saloon-bar moanings about the way in which the club is managed".

A comment by a user called 'cbrbob', on Owls fansite Owlstalk, in reply to another's posting about a trip abroad by the club's manager and its chief executive to watch players with a view to making a signing. "They blew all the money on hookers," wrote cbrbob. Someone else replied, "It's not a hooker we need, it's a striker," to which cbrbob retorted, "they wouldn't know the difference."

Parkes wrote: "The Claimants are not, it appears, concerned about the suggestion that they spent the club's money on prostitutes, which I presume they accept might have been unlikely to be taken seriously, but with the suggestion that the [chief executive] would not have known the difference between a hooker in rugby and a striker in football, which would have been understood to mean that [the chief executive] would not have been capable of spotting a competent player."

Sheffield Wednesday FC, its chairman, Dave Allen, chief executive Kaven Walker and five directors took legal action against Neil Hargreaves who runs a fan discussion site called Owlstalk.co.uk.

They wanted an order from the court to force Hargreaves to identify 11 members of his site whom they accused of pursuing a "sustained campaign of vilification" against them.

Parkes ruled that the identity of seven of the 11 individuals should be protected.

However, he did regard some comments as more serious, being "those which may reasonably be understood to allege greed, selfishness, untrustworthiness and dishonest behaviour on the part of the Claimants."

Here he said that the claimants' right to take action to protect their reputations outweighs the authors' rights "to maintain their anonymity and their right to express themselves freely".

The judge ordered the disclosure of the identities of four users, known only as halfpint, Ian, Vaughhan and DJ Mortimer.

The full judgement can be read here

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So what’s been happening this summer at Sheffield Wednesday?

Oh the usual: big, show-boating bids made for players that fail at the last minute; a bit of football; and then there’s this Chairman versus all-comers thing that’s been raging for ‘Donkeys-Years’.

How ironic that Sheffield Wednesday’s chairman is called Dave Allen. The famous Dave Allen is an affable, well-loved comedian with a relaxed and intimate manner that would have made him welcome in most peoples living-rooms. I must say that the other Dave Allen is the antithesis of this. I doubt he would be welcomed into the loving room of the lady he referred to as a “venomous bitch” or the supporters he refers to as “cretins” and “scum”.

Untangling this mess is a little tricky not least because it appears that Dave Allen is adamant that there is a link between his personal share-holding and the sale of the club. This should be the real focus and I noted with interest the comments made by The Sheffield Wednesday Shareholders Association in the aftermath of the ‘press conference’. They offered to lobby their members and get them to sell their shares to a potential buyer for the same price the board sell their shares.

“In order to assist the club and its directors to facilitate a takeover of our club, and to overcome the barriers to this referred to by Mr Allen last week, we would like to assist in the following way,” Said Dave Coupe. “We will be approaching ALL shareholders of SWFC and not just our members (who hold 16%) to ask them to register with us their intention to sell up to 95% of their own shareholding at whatever price the SWFC Board have negotiated for their own shares.”

Interesting…. You see if the stumbling block for any sale is a controlling interest in the club then this could solve the problem. Also if one wanted to buy shares in the club they are and have been available on the open market. Only a couple of months ago I purchased a reasonable sizeable holding myself for example as did the Fan’s group Wednesdayite. It’s also very common for investors to increase their shareholding in a business by issuing and buying more shares or even taking debt as warrants that can convert to stock.

So why on earth is there such a fuss made about Wednesdayite?

According to Joe Ashton, it’s all down to money: “Why doesn't Mr Allen now call another meeting to answer rumours that the deal fell through because he was demanding 38p for the shares he bought for 12p in 2001, and that he asked for a special payment.”

So let’s assume that Dave Allen wants to sell the club. He probably feels a little aggrieved that having put the club on an even-keel he deserves more that a pat-on-the-back and crucially he probably regrets handing over almost 5 million of the clubs shareholding to a trust. That was, in hindsight, a mistake. The offer currently on the table is around 10p per share or £500,000. That’s not a bad offer, but if we are to believe Mr Ashton it’s only about 25% of what he is prepared to sell them for thus making him a tidy £1,500,000 profit.

I actually don’t think there’s anything wrong with anybody making money from a speculative investment. In fact, unlike Joe Aston, I think he deserves to receive a premium for his efforts. The problem he now has is that he’s got himself locked into a totally pointless ‘war’ with Wednesdayite and the supporters of the club. If he really believes that he can unlock the shares from the grip of Wednesdayite by using low-level abuse is naive at best.

The only solution to this conundrum is for Dave Allen to just suck-up the fact that he and other Directors made a mistake when they ‘gifted’ 9.5% of the clubs outstanding shares to the Owls Trust. Faced with the board having to make a formal offer to buy all of the remaining outstanding shares I’m sure it seemed like a good plan at the time. Time has moved on though and very few are buying the idea that in order to sell the club that Dave Allen needs to get those 5 million shares back from Wednesdayite back. So instead of hosting totally pointless press conferences that only serve to further distance him from the supporters he should focus on solving the actual problem at hand.

While all of this is happening the club have not sufficiently invested in the team thus far this summer. With significant funds inbound from the sale of Bougherra, Talbot and increased TV revenue the club have more money that they have had for several years and yet there have been no significant signings and no transfer fees paid.

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