Former manager Chris Turner leads latest Sheffield Wednesday takeover bid

Only a last-minute bail-out by major creditors the Co-Operative Bank enabled the club to fend off a winding-up order this month and the clock is now ticking towards the possibility of administration.

Without major new investment, the Owls will remain locked in a spiral of debt which, after 10 years, is finally threatening to pull the club under.

Turner, 52, is fronting a bid on behalf of the same investors who wanted to inject 10m into League One rivals Hartlepool United earlier this season.

When that deal was rejected by the Pools board last month, Turner quit as the club's director of sport and subsequently urged the group to turn their attentions to Wednesday, his hometown club.

The group are understood to have strong links with the oil industry and include wealthy businessmen from both the Middle East and Scandinavia.

Hartlepool's former chief executive Russ Green, who lives in West Yorkshire, is also involved and attended a recent Owls home game as a guest of the board.

Talks between the two parties have reached an advanced stage and the Owls could even make a decision one way or the other in the next few days.

Debts have reached 30m at Hillsborough, with around 25m of that owed to the Co-Operative Bank who are pressing for the club to accept new investment rather than extending the debt.

It is understood that Turner, who was axed as Owls manager in 2004 after two years in charge, is not viewed as a threat to current boss Alan Irvine.

However, if the deal does go ahead, Turner is likely to be offered a new role as director of football.

His previous association with the Owls (he made over 200 appearances during two spells as a goalkeeper with the club in the 1970s and 1980s) will have opened doors at Hillsborough but the ability of his associates to provide proof of funding will be paramount in the success or failure of negotiations.

The club's widespread shareholding is anxiously awaiting news on new investment and any deal will need to be rubber-stamped by an Extraordinary General Meeting.

Over the last few years, a string of potential investors have come forward with offers of financial assistance but have either been turned away by the board or been deterred by the scale of the problems.

Among those still interested are the Chicago-based company Club 9 Sports, boxing promoter Dennis Hobson, and former East Stirlingshire chairman Spencer Fearn, whose company, Life Skills Solutions, a Rotherham-based training business, sponsors one of the stands at Hillsborough.

Former Home Secretary David Blunkett and Paul Potts, former chief executive of the Press Association, expressed a willingness to join the board if that could help secure investment but their offers have yet to be accepted.

Former Owls chairman Dave Allen, who resigned from the board to invest in neighbours Chesterfield, claims a takeover bid by former Everton director Paul Gregg collapsed in 2007 due, in part, to the 10 per cent stake in the club owned by supporters group, Wednesdayite.

Allen's comments have led to Wednesdayite issuing a statement in which they tell Allen to 'keep his own silence!'

"As he has stated that he still has the letter from Mr Gregg's lawyers, we would now urge him to reveal the entire content of the letter, and would also like to ask him publicly why he thinks Mr Gregg never once attempted to speak to the Supporters' Trust (nor the Shareholder's Association) to establish whether their shares would be made available to an incoming investor," said the statement. "Subsequent years of abortive negotiations have proved beyond all doubt that our shareholding is not the issue.

"Indeed our members were balloted on the sale of our shares to a subsequent interested party and approved this.

"It's also clear that Mr Gregg didn't buy into any other club following his decision to back out – which would seem to suggest that it is true that he changed his mind about investing in football.

"The biggest issue appears to be the loan notes held by Mr Allen and other directors who managed to triple our debt on relegation from the Premiership – and were forced to make loans to the club to keep it afloat.

"The Supporters' Trust has maintained a dignified silence regarding Mr Allen since his scandalous press conference a few years ago where he labelled supporters of the club 'cretins and scum', and wasted the time of numerous respected journalists. We would like to suggest Mr Allen keep his own silence."

The Owls were relegated from the Championship last season and have suffered three consecutive defeats ahead of this weekend's home game with Southampton.

Fans chanted 'Sack the Board' during the club's last home game, a 1-0 defeat by Carlisle United, and there is likely to be another tense atmosphere at Hillsborough on Saturday afternoon.