John Textor: Where Eagles Shouldn't Dare
Following on from last week’s article on Crystal Palace’s fluctuating fortunes, More Than A Game takes a closer look at the football ownership career of controversial entrepreneur John Textor.
“We have a saying that water flows to where it must”, said the easy-mannered Missourian, John Textor. He used the phrase in his interview in October 2025 on The Added Time Podcast (“TATP”) to describe a key principle of his vision when it comes to football club ownership: Collaboration between clubs in the same ownership stable.
Specifically, the concept envisages a global scouting network unearthing talent so that it ends up at the apex of global club football: The English Premier League. That is where the talent flows to, as the best players wish to showcase their talents in the world’s most lucrative league.
The strategy envisages scouring the world for unearthed diamonds at a low cost, grooming them in one of the leagues where you own a club, and then realising profits on your investment by disposing of those players at a handsome profit to the English club you own, ideally in the Premier League, which is bankrolled by the riches that comes from being part of English football’s top tier.
Broadly speaking, this is the collaborative approach to multi-club ownership of Eagle Football Holdings (EFH), which was Textor’s holding vehicle for his football investments (update: as of January 2026, he appears to have lost control of EFH to creditors, as covered later).
He built the entity after an acquisition spree in 2021 and 2022, which began with a large minority stake in Palace, before taking control of Belgian club RWDM, Brazilian side Botafogo and finally, fallen French giants Olympique Lyonnais.
Along the way, Textor brought in powerful backers, including Ares Management, a large US private capital provider, and Michele Kang, a renowned investor in women’s sports in the US, and owner of the Women’s Super League club London Lionesses.
Textor speaks at length on TATP on the importance of intra-group collaboration. He cites the work he put in, alongside Dougie Freedman, as a driver of the success Palace enjoyed in 2024-25, a season in which the club won the FA Cup. They started 2025-26 by winning the Community Shield, and extended their unbeaten run in all competitions to 19 games, only to see that run ended by Everton in October.
The context of the discussion was Textor’s ongoing desire to acquire another English club, following his enforced exit from Palace in July 2025.
As explained in this article, Palace had been demoted from the Europa League to the Conference League, having found to have broken UEFA’s rules regarding multi-club ownership.
Textor’s control of Lyon, who had also qualified for the Europa League, and his large minority shareholding in Palace was found to have breached UEFA’s rules regarding having clubs in the same multi-club ownership stable competing in the same European competition at the same time.
Textor and EFH duly sold their shares in Palace to Woody Johnson, owner of the New York Jets, in the summer of 2025. The reported purchase price of $250m represented a very healthy return on the price Textor and EFH paid to acquire Palace shares in the first instance ($110m) in 2021.
Concurrently, EFH and Textor ran into serious difficulties with the French financial Football regulator (DNCG). Unlike their investment at Palace, EFH controlled Lyon outright, and had been found to have committed breaches of the financial fair play regulations applicable in France.
Lyon faced relegation, and Textor relinquished day-to-day involvement and handed the reins to Kang, who oversaw a significant reduction in the club’s debts and overhaul of its operations.
The DNCG overturned the demotion and, under Kang’s leadership, Lyon now sit third in Ligue 1, despite selling a number of key players, such as Ryan Cherki, who joined Manchester City last summer.
Textor’s dalliance with English and French football to date has been far less successful than his other investment — Botafogo. He is seen as a saviour by supporters of the club, having overseen a meteoric rise from relegation fodder to continental champions, culminating in an eye-catching win over Paris Saint-Germain at the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup.
So, what are we to make of Textor’s ownership record so far? It is mixed to say the least. He certainly speaks with passion and knowledge on his love for the game, but the nagging suspicion is that the root of his troubles is a lack of sufficient wealth and the capital that is needed to solve issues in a quick and timely manner.
This suspicion appears validated by the news in January 2026 that Ares Management, which had funded EFH’s acquisitions, had moved to take control of Textor’s shares in EFH following a default on near $500m worth of high-interest debt.
Textor’s plan appeared to revolve around borrowing much of the capital needed to acquire the four clubs in question, and then focusing on player trading as a means of generating cash along the way, which would then be used to pay down acquisition debts.
The player trading strategy hinged on the collaboration between clubs in the same ownership stable (which he spoke about in his interview with TATP, which took place before the news of Ares Management’s seizure of control of EFH).
Crucial to the strategy is ownership of a Premier League club to acquire the players, funded by healthy transfer budgets made possible by the riches of that competition. A further pillar to the strategy was to seek a listing of EFH via an initial placement offering (IPO) on a stock exchange. This failed.
The enforced sale of EFH’s shares in Palace would likely have provided some breathing space for Textor, but ultimately, it appears not to have been enough to satisfy EFH’s largest creditor, Ares.
Textor is cited as a billionaire, but public information on his source of wealth is sketchy at best. A billionaire with easy access to capital would not have needed to spin so many plates and would certainly not have lost control of costly football investments.
Perhaps, it was a case of Eagles daring where they shouldn’t.
A guest contributor wrote this article. If you are interested in being involved with MTAG, feel free to reach out.