<div class="headline" id="ds-headline"><h1>Blunder may put Owls in trouble</h1></div> <div class="viewarticlepanel"><div class="multiimageoff" id="MainMultiImage"> <div class="off noprint" id="divGalleryLink">View Gallery</div></div></div><div class="byline" id="ds-byline">By Robert Gledhill</div><div class="ds-firstpara" id="ds-firstpara">SHEFFIELD Wednesday's Championship survival hopes could be dealt a blow if the Football League deduct them a point for fielding too many loan players in their 1-1 draw against Stoke City on Saturday. </div><div class="va-bodytext" id="va-bodytext">The outcome of the League's expected investigation, demanded by the Potteries club following Frenchman Franck Songo'o scoring a second-half equaliser for Wednesday, would affect promotion-chasing Hull City if Stoke are awarded the three points. The Tigers' 3-0 win over Watford moved them to within one point of Stoke and an automatic promotion place as Bristol City replaced them at the top by a further point. Wednesday remain in the bottom three, but the draw left them just one point behind Southampton and Barnsley, whom they have two and one games in hand over, respectively. Wednesday are also just two points behind Leicester, whom they have two games in hand over, while tomorrow's visitors to Hillsborough, Coventry City, are just three points above the Owls, having played a game more. League rules state that a maximum of five loan players (either short or long-term) can be named in the match-day 16 but the Owls named six. Graham Kavanagh (Sunderland), Ben Sahar (Chelsea) and Songo'o (Portsmouth) started the game and Adam Bolder (QPR), Enoch Showunmi (Bristol City) and Bartosz Slusarski (West Bromwich Albion) were on the bench. Stoke fielded five loan players in their squad and were forced to leave out Paul Gallagher and Gabriel Zakuani to comply with the laws. Only Showunmi came off the bench and the Owls will be hoping that this fact will weigh in their favour and that they can escape with a fine rather than a point deduction. However, with the points situation being so tight at both the top and the bottom, that may not be enough to placate other clubs. Sheffield Wednesday chief executive Kevan Walker would not comment over what appears to be an administrative blunder by the club and a club spokesman would only add: "We will not be making any comment at this stage." The Football League's head of communications, John Nagle, said: "All we can say at present is that the team sheet will come in and we will then analyse it." Leeds United fell victim of the law in December, 2006 when they fielded five loan signings at Burnley and had another, goalkeeper Tony Warner, on the bench. They were fined £1,000 but the points issue did not figure as Leeds lost the game 2-1. Stoke chief executive Tony Scholes explained his club's position, stating: "We went straight onto the League on Saturday evening when the situation first became known to us and they told us that the situation would be considered on Monday morning. We are now waiting to see what emerges before deciding whether it is appropriate to consider any further action in this matter." Although he would not expand his comments, it is clear that Stoke do not believe Wednesday can have only partially broken the rules and feel that they would have a valid case for claiming all three points as failure to go up automatically and subsequently being knocked out in the play-offs would cost them at least £35m in lost income. </div> <div class="premiumoff" id="divWordCount">The full article contains 556 words and appears in n/a newspaper.</div><div class="ds-modifieddate">Last Updated: 31 March 2008 8:24 AM</div>
