Sheffield United's owners are due before the High Court today, four days after the club opened the Championship season with a goalless draw at home to Birmingham City, and one outcome of the hearing is a 12-point deduction. The petition is not against the football club. It is against COH Sports Bidco Limited, the company that bought the Blades in December 2024 and, on the former owner's account, has never finished paying for them.
The consortium agreed a price of just over £100m. An initial payment of about £30m was made when the sale closed; a later instalment was late and arrived only after a statutory demand, sent on the deadline; two further payments due this year were missed. More than £35m including interest is outstanding, a debt the current owners have not denied. United World, the investment vehicle of Prince Abdullah bin Mosaad Al Saud, who bought half the club in 2013 and the rest in 2019, filed the winding-up petition on 8 July.
What has turned a debt into a regulatory problem is what happened in June. The shares in the club were moved out of CSBL, and a board update on 22 June announced that 1919 Partners LLC, a Delaware corporation, "is the parent company of Sheffield United FC" and "sits at the centre of the ownership structure". United World calls the new company "an attempt to avoid paying CSBL's creditors". The owners confirm the change and say the two matters are unrelated.
From there the sanctions run on two separate tracks. If the owners are declared insolvent, a 12-point deduction could be imposed on the club. Separately, EFL Regulation 2.1.16 allows the disqualification of any owner involved in two insolvencies in 10 years, and it is understood that Steven Rosen was non-executive chairman of the American company Invacare, which had an insolvency event in 2023.