FootBiz newsletter #89: Lyon relegated, Palace sold, what now for Eagle Football?

“RIP Project Textor”

This week, outside the stadium of one of the clubs owned by John Textor’s Eagle Football group, a funeral wreath was hung bearing the none too cryptic epitaph.

But no, this wasn’t yesterday afternoon in Lyon, even as one of France’s most famous clubs was relegated to the second tier by French football’s financial regulator (DNCG).

Nor was it in Brazil, where his club was sanctioned by FIFA for unpaid transfer fees.

It wasn’t in south London either, where he finally agreed to sell his troublesome stake in Crystal Palace that has put the Eagles’ first-ever Europa League campaign in doubt and soured the aftermath of their first major trophy.

No, rather it was in Brussels, where fans protested on the streets and politicians supported their cause in the legislature as they look to reverse Textor’s decision to unilaterally change the name of RWDM to Daring Brussels.

Other banners were less dramatic and more simple and direct: “Text Out”.

Whichever you way you look at it, that’s a hell of a week.

What the future looks like for Eagle Football is probably a longer discussion for another time, given their pending appeal, but if that appeal against relegation is unsuccessful then Olympique Lyonnais will be a second-tier club solely due to Textor’s failed financial games. The near $1bn that Textor paid for OL seemed a lot at the time, but the situation now is truly dire.

Should relegation be confirmed, the squad has few — if any — players with relegation wage provisions in their contracts, according to local reports that surfaced when they were in the drop zone last season. But that is small compared to the debt issue.

Ares Capital loaned Textor hundreds of millions for the project but now there is the serious question of what the club is even worth anymore; after Ligue 1’s media rights imploded, Textor sold many of the core assets (women’s team, indoor arena) and the team has continued to struggle on the pitch.

It’s almost certainly worth less than what Ares loaned the American, but it is understood that they have no desire to take over the running of the club. For that, Textor should be grateful. More than anything, though, he should be gravely concerned that he is the common thread with all these famous old clubs suddenly experiencing problems.

Well, that’s perhaps unfair. Botafogo have done very well on the field under his stewardship, though Textor himself had to pay $1m to the Brazilian authorities to avoid a lengthy personal ban after claiming (without evidence) that referees fixed matches against his club.

Botafogo’s domestic and Copa Libertadores success gave his team access to the Club World Cup, where they also defeated Paris Saint-Germain this week, their domestic foe run by old rival Nasser al-Khelaifi. But even that $7.5m windfall from advancing to the knockout phase (and they have a great chance of making the quarter-final, and another $14m, after drawing Palmeiras in the round of 16) is nowhere close to helping Textor find the money he needs to pay back lenders and/or his SPAC partner Iconic Sports Management, who are understood to be due $75m if the IPO does not happen.

What happens to that long-promised IPO is anybody’s guess, but filing a confidential S-1 means there is no defined timeline and market insiders fail to see how Textor could go through with the offering now that the Palace stake has been sold and Lyon’s value has been completely nuked.

There’s also just a question of trust when these things keep happening.

Some at Palace are suspicious of Textor’s relationship with Nottingham Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis, given Forest have written to UEFA effectively gunning for Palace’s Europa League berth.

They were similarly sceptical that Textor had any choice but to sell his Palace stake irrespective of the Europa League drama, knowing how much money was needed to (unsuccessfully) dig debt-laden Lyon out of trouble.

Given that UEFA’s decision on Palace’s Europa League eligibility appears to hinge more on the level of influence Textor had than anything else, and the mention of the Palace sale in Lyon’s statement that they will appeal, that seems like a fair chance.

There is also a chance that Lyon’s relegation has, at least, given UEFA and Palace an easy way out of what had threatened to become a complex mess. Both parties would surely be relieved if the CNDG bailed them out so thoroughly after weeks of stress — but Textor remains deep in it.

Having rushed to sell his stake to convince the DNCG of Eagle’s abundance of cash, the DNCG still followed through on November’s provisional relegation and demoted Lyon, an outcome Textor had said there was “no chance” of. The widening gap between what Textor says and what actually happens means we simply don’t know what is bluster and what is substance any more. Is there any substance?

Maybe this is the beginning of the end for Eagle Football or maybe it’s just part of a significant realignment for the group.

It does feel, in the end, like an overly ambitious plan that spread itself too thin. If Eagle don’t win their appeal against relegation in France, there may be protests from fans in Lyon to join those in south London and Brussels.

At some point, they can’t all be wrong.

Table of Contents

• Barca being Barca

• Brazil joins race for CWC 2029

• Palace, Forest and UEFA latest

• EFL changes multi-club rules

• Fox make big acquisition in streaming wars

• DAZN betting on CL

• Bale confirms Cardiff dream

• M&A Murmurs

• Brentford go for first-time coach

Barca being Barca

Barcelona released a statement last week on their social channels.

A new signing? An update on the return to the Camp Nou? An interview with Lamine Yamal?

No, of course not. Just a quick note to let everyone know that their credit rating had improved 📈 

“The Club's credit rating changes from "stable" to positive" confirming the entity's economic recovery” bragged the headline.

And no sooner had they celebrated the latest bump in their credit score than Deco had jumped on a plane to meet Athletic Club’s Nico Williams over a €60m move.

Yes, this is the club that couldn’t register players last year because of their financial position.

No, they will never change.

Brazil joins race for CWC 2029

We have not even completed one edition of the expanded Club World Cup and competition is already building to stage the 2029 competition, which as The Guardian reported earlier this month could be further expanded to 48 clubs to guarantee more entrants from Europe and boost finances for both FIFA and leading clubs.

With Australia and Morocco having already declared their interest in hosting the tournament, Brazil have followed suit following a meeting between the new president of the Brazilian Football Federation (CBF), Samir Xaud, and Gianni Infantino last Friday.

“It all started with an introductory conversation,” Xaud said in a statement published on the CBF website.

“I spoke about my goals as head of the CBF and said that we want to be closer to FIFA. I praised the event and the level of Brazilian clubs and, finally, I made the country available to host the next World Cup.

"President Gianni Infantino was very happy and said that it was totally possible. Now we’re going to work to make it happen. It’s going to be a great goal.”

Brazil last hosted a major tournament in 2014, which was the first time the World Cup had gone to South America since 1986 and it could be decades before they see another finals on the soil of the most football-mad continent on Earth.

They will not even be eligible to host another until at least the 2040s after FIFA and CONMEBOL agreed to have one game apiece in Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay to kick off the centenary World Cup in 2030, thus using up South America’s turn in the hosting rotation (and, completely coincidentally, handing the 2034 World Cup to Saudi Arabia.)

Palace, Forest and UEFA latest

Nottingham Forest will study UEFA’s ruling regarding Crystal Palace’s eligibility to compete in next season’s Europa League in detail before deciding whether to take the matter to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. 

Forest wrote to UEFA earlier this month to express concerns about Palace taking part in the competition due to a possible breach of their multi-club rules as the club’s largest shareholder John Textor also owns fellow qualifiers Lyon. 

Textor this week agreed to sell his 44.9 per cent stake in Palace to New York Jets owner Woody Johnson in a move that club hope will resolve the issue, but the transaction is unlikely to be completed for several months. 

Forest are not ready to drop their interest in the case just yet however, and will wait for the judgement of UEFA’s CFCB before declaring their hand. 

Under UEFA regulations, Forest would be promoted from the Conference League to the Europa League in Palace’s place if the club are deemed to have breach MCO rules. 

The specific governance attached to Woody Johnson’s investment in Palace are of keen interest to fans, and never more so than in the wake of arguments over John Textor’s “decisive influence”.

While one industry insider described Textor’s Palace stake as the “most expensive season ticket in the Premier League” to FootBiz last year, that distance could well suit pharmaceuticals heir Johnson, who has had plenty on his hands running the Jets since returning from his spell as Donald Trump’s ambassador to the UK.

The Jets are one of the NFL’s most cursed franchises, and are currently enduring the longest active playoff drought in the league.

What hasn’t helped improve their fortunes, per reports, is Woody’s reliance on his teenage sons in evaluating the team’s needs and actions, which came to light as another season flamed out last winter.

“When we’re discussing things, you’ll hear Woody cite something that Brick or Jack read online that’s being weighed equally against whatever opinion someone else in the department has,” one Jets executive told The Athletic in December.

Most infamously, the Jets pulled out of a trade for wide receiver Jerry Jeudy after Johnson’s son Brick cited his rating on the video game Madden as being too low.

It prompted (now fired) general manager Joe Douglas to quip to those close to him: “I answer to a teenager”.

So will young Brick have “decisive influence” at Palace? Just asking for UEFA purposes…

EFL changes multi-club rules

The EFL has changed its multi-club ownership rules to allow owners to buy clubs in the Scottish and Irish leagues, according to The Guardian. At their AGM earlier this month the EFL clubs agreed to remove he Scottish Professional Football League and Irish Football League from the list of competitions clubs are prohibited from investing in.

The EFL have concerns about potential integrity issues raised by multi-club ownership, but given their increasing ubiquity have opted to align their rules with other competitions, including the Premier League.

The issue was highlighted when Leeds’s majority owner, 49er Enterprises, entered exclusive negotiations about buying Rangers last month. 49ers Enterprises paid £75m for 51% of Rangers in a transaction that would have been delayed had Leeds not already been promoted to the Premier League.

Aussie PL rights to change hands?

Australian broadcaster Nine is to merge its streaming and broadcast divisions, bucking a recent trend of spin-offs and separation seen elsewhere in media.

More significantly for us, however, Nine are reportedly also close to a deal to take the Premier League rights off rival broadcaster Optus.

The deal would see Nine show the Premier League on their streamer, Stan Sports, from August and place them in the driving seat when the coveted rights come up again in just under two years time.

There has been market chatter for over year that Optus, a telecom company, may sell its sports streaming division to Nine. While Optus Sports has a strong portfolio of soccer rights, they have failed to make a dent in more Australian sports such as rugby league, rugby union and Aussie rules due to the high cost and long contracts associated with those broadcast rights.

Fox make big acquisition in streaming wars

American broadcaster Fox Sports made a big move in the Mexican market by acquiring Caliente TV, significantly strengthening its football offering as it looks to build a streaming platform for North America that leans heavily on live sports.

While Fox did not disclose the financial terms, the upshot is that it now has the rights to a lot of top-level football in Mexico — the most valuable sport in the country — including:

• Six Liga MX Men’s Clubs – including Club León, Club Pachuca, Club Tijuana, Club Querétaro, Club Tigres UANL, and Club Juárez

• Ten Liga MX Women’s Clubs – including Club Guadalajara, Club León, Club Pachuca, Club Tijuana, Club Juárez, Club Querétaro, Club Atlas, Club Santos, Club Puebla, and Club Mazatlán

• CONCACAF Champions Cup (Copa de Campeones de la CONCACAF) – featuring the top football clubs from North and Central America, including Liga MX and MLS

• Premier League and the FA Cup – the world’s richest league

• UEFA Champions League – arguably the best club competition on Earth

• Ligue 1 – including this year’s European champs, Paris Saint-Germain

• Coppa Italia – okay, I don’t know how many subscribers this would actually drive.

The top bullet point might be the most interesting in terms of what could follow.

Liga MX remains the biggest sports league in the world (please reply with a bigger one if I’m wrong) that has not yet centralised its media rights, with clubs selling theirs individually.

Centralisation is a core pillar of Apollo’s plan for when the New York fund’s re-worked investment into the league eventually gets agreed. Disagreements over the initial deal saw the resignation of Juan Carlos Rodriguez as league president after the owners insisted changes be made, but the owners have formed a number of committees to iron out the details. News is likely before the end of the year.

Liga MX owners voted in favour of rights centraling in 2028, and this move suggests Fox will be one of the major bidders as they look to gain traction on their upcoming streamer in the Mexican market.

On American soil they already have NFL rights and Major League Baseball while also boasting key football properties such as the World Cup, European Championships and much of the CONCACAF slate, making them the de facto home of the USMNT.

Securing a strong rights portfolio in the competitive NA market will be crucial in finding success in a crowded streaming marketplace.

DAZN betting on CL

TelevisaUnivision has sub-licensed some of its Spanish-language rights to certain Champions and Europa League games in the US to DAZN for the next two seasons.

The heavily loss-making streamer is gambling on UEFA’s top property becoming a streaming success even though many of the games they have paid for will be “co-exclusively” broadcast with TelevisaUnivision.

Bale confirms Cardiff dream

Gareth Bale has confirmed he is part of a consortium in talks over buying his hometown club, Cardiff City. An initial offer submitted to Cardiff owner Vincent Tan earlier this month was rejected, but the Malaysian businessman wants to sell and dialogue between the two parties remains open.

Bale’s group have also held talks with Plymouth, who were relegated to League One along with Cardiff last season, without making a formal offer.

"We are trying to engage with Cardiff, and more news will come out on that in the future, but hopefully we can get something done,” Bale said earlier this week.

“Cardiff is a club close to my heart.”

M&A Murmurs

Best known as the reviled owner of the Oakland As, who stripped the team of its assets, pride and moved it to Las Vegas, John Fisher is also the owner of MLS franchise the San Jose Earthquakes.

But not for much longer.

Fisher confirmed that he has brought investment bank Moelis on board to sell the Quakes, having previously used them to explore a minority sale a few years ago.

This time it’s for real, and the asking price is around $600m.

MLS valuations are a peculiar beast. Risk is heavily mitigated by having no relegation and some teams are now driving huge revenues but the Earthquakes aren’t one of them.

While the Bay Area is an incredibly wealthy region and a significant media market, per Sportico’s valuations they are the 20th most valuable MLS team (out of 30) though they have one of the lowest average attendances (27th) and made an operating loss of $10m on revenues of $59m last year.

They join the Vancouver Whitecaps as MLS teams on the market.

Tony Bloom’s purchase of 29% of Hearts is expected to be official soon after an extraordinary general meeting approved his bid.

The owner of Brighton and Hove Albion is specifically buying non-voting shares to avoid running into the sort of multi-club ownership issues we have seen rivals Crystal Palace encounter in recent weeks.

While Dragan Solak has denied that Southampton are for sale, the Serbian businessman has conceded he would be open to new investment in the club or his Sport Republic vehicle.

Sport Republic owns 80% of the south coast club, as well as Valenciennes (France) and Goztepe (Turkey) but their number one priority is getting the Saints back in the top flight after a humiliating relegation that saw them finish 26 points from safety and only narrowly avoid the ignominy of being the worst Premier League side in history.

We recently suggested that the French league was so uninvestable right now that it could eventually come full circle and represent value at some point soon.

Well, it’s starting to happen. Le Havre could transact fairly soon with an American multi-club group sniffing about.

In a deal that took three years from start to finish, American investment group Lenore Sports Partners (LSP) have finally completed their minority investment in Benfica. Front Office Sports reported it as a $20m stake but doesn’t say what percentage of the club they got for that.

The Portuguese giants have been subject to a lot of investor interest over the years, but their legal wranglings have complicated things - most famously for John Textor, who named his entire multi-club operation after the nickname Benfica shared with Crystal Palace.

When Woody Johnson’s purchase of Textor’s stake is complete, Eagle Football will not have a single eagle club in its stable.

Saudi Arabian businessman and Turki Alalshikh has held talks about buying Bristol City, according to The Sun.

Alalshikh, chairman of Saudi’s General Entertainment Authority, who has taken several world championship boxing fights to the Kingdom including heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk’s double header against Tyson Fury, has looked at several English clubs including Millwall and Southampton.

Championship club City are owned by Steve Lansdown, a lifelong fan who has amassed assets of almost £2bn through financial services company Hargreaves Lansdown. The 72-year-old also owns rugby club Bristol Bears and basketball side Bristol Flyers, and unlike other Championship owners is not actively seeking a buyer.

Brentford go for first-time coach

Brentford have agreed a deal to appoint the club’s set-piece coach Keith Andrews as their new manager.

The former Republic of Ireland midfielder will replace Thomas Frank, who left to join Tottenham earlier this month, at the Gtech Community Stadium in a typically bold move from the club’s owner Matthew Benham.

Brentford also considered several external candidates, including Ipswich Kieran McKenna and Francesco Farioli who left Ajax last month, but have gone for Andrews after he impressed at interview. The 44-year-old joined the club in a specific set-piece role 12 months ago having previously been on the coaching staff at Sheffield United and MK Dons, as well as acting as assistant to Ireland manager Stephen Kenny.

Andrews is taking his first managerial role, but the surprise appointment is consistent with club policy at Brentford, who also promoted Frank from his role as an assistant coach to replace Dean Smith seven years ago.

In the Championship, former Luton manager Rob Edwards has appointed by Middlesbrough, their eighth since relegation from the Premier League in 2017. The 42-year-old has been given a three-year contract to replace Michael Carrick, who was sacked after Middlesbrough failed to reach the play-offs last month.

“It’s a real privilege to be given the opportunity to be head coach of this great football club,” Edwards said. “It’s something that’s not lost on me, how big this is, how important this is and what it means to people. There is an amazing fanbase here.”

Edwards led Luton into the top flight for the first time in 31 years in 2023, but they were relegated after just one season. The club struggled on their return to the Championship and Edwards was sacked last January with his side 20th in the table, before they were relegated to League One under Matt Bloomfield.