John Textor: His uncertain Palace future, Lyon boardroom battles and multi-club vision
You know the old joke about London buses?
In the multi-club ownership era, interviews with football club owners are a bit like that. You wait weeks and weeks for one and then three, sorry, four come along once.
Because, readers, the next in our occasional series of chats with owners of English clubs is John Textor, the founder and chairman of Eagle Football, a group that owns majority stakes in Brazil’s Botafogo, French side Olympique Lyonnais and RWD Molenbeek in Belgium, as well as a large slice of Crystal Palace.
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So, that’s four relatively recent takeovers to discuss, two of which were bumpy, one was a pioneering move into a huge but largely unexplored market and one that… well, we’ll let Textor explain.
The 57-year-old American also provides updates on a significant corporate move, the sale of a successful American sports franchise and a merger involving the Europe’s best women’s team.
The Athletic: Let’s start with Eagle Football’s takeover of Olympique Lyonnais. What’s the latest?
Textor: We’re moving through the growing pains of a takeover of a big and complicated club. When you buy a business from a founder, or someone who has been a leader for a long time, there are many similarities as to what you’d go through.
First, the seller decides to invite you in and maybe cash out because they’re moving on or their life is changing.
Then, we had to work through a complex group of parties but eventually put together a lot of capital: my own and from partners we brought in, Ares, Jamie Dinan, J-P Conte, Elmwood and some others.
But what happened next is what happens a lot. The guy who was running the business (Jean-Michel Aulas), who sold us two thirds of his shares, has seller’s remorse.
The first couple of months
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