{"id":326063,"date":"2025-12-20T06:55:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-20T06:55:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/326063\/"},"modified":"2025-12-20T06:55:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-20T06:55:11","slug":"wolves-jeff-shi-leaves-premier-league-basement-side-as-he-steps-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/326063\/","title":{"rendered":"Wolves: Jeff Shi leaves Premier League basement side as he steps down"},"content":{"rendered":"

Outgoing executive chairman Shi had been a target for unhappy Wolves<\/a> fans, with critics viewing him as overseeing a managed decline of the club<\/a> under Fosun.<\/p>\n

He had been a target of supporters’ anger for months, with long-term frustrations now boiling over as Wolves<\/a> – 14 points from 17th place – stare at a return to the Championship.<\/p>\n

Wolves<\/a> host Brentford<\/a> on Saturday and will be looking to avoid equalling the Premier League’s worst opening winless run.<\/p>\n

If they fail to beat the Bees at Molineux they will match the longest winless start to a Premier League season of 17 games – set by Sheffield United in 2020-21.<\/p>\n

Under the departing Shi, Wolves<\/a> won promotion from the Championship in 2018 with Nuno Espirito Santo in charge of the team before having two successive seventh-placed finishes in the top flight.<\/p>\n

They also reached the quarter-finals of the Europa League in 2020 and an FA Cup semi-final in 2019.<\/p>\n

Speaking last week, Jeff Shi said he understood fans’ frustrations, with several thousand boycotting the opening 15 minutes of the 4-1 defeat by Manchester United<\/a> on 8 December.<\/p>\n

“It’s a very natural feeling from the fans,” he said. “Five or six years ago we were at some heights, the semi-final of the FA Cup and quarter-final in Europe.<\/p>\n

“When you have reached those heights, fans don’t want to let it go. I feel it myself. When you lose something like that it’s a tough blow – for this I have empathy.<\/p>\n

“I’m not only a fan, I’m the CEO and chairman in the club. I have to think about how to judge the last decade in a more factual way and think about the next 10 years.”<\/p>\n

Shi spoke to BBC WM last week, alongside technical director Matt Jackson, and the pair suggested Wolves got their transfer business wrong in the summer.<\/a><\/p>\n

“Maybe we sold too many players in one window,” Jeff Shi said. “You can see the squad and compare it to last season, maybe we changed 40 or 50% of the key players.<\/p>\n

“It’s a task to rebuild a team but the Premier League is very tough. If you can’t control the tempo and need a longer time to rebuild the team the games will punish you.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Outgoing executive chairman Shi had been a target for unhappy Wolves fans, with critics viewing him as overseeing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":326064,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-326063","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=326063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326063\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/326064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=326063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=326063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=326063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}