Ordinarily, news of a £400million-plus bid for a Premier League club would be, well, news.
I would usually write 600 words or so about how John Textor, who recently sold a minority stake in Crystal Palace, has made an offer of $200million in cash and $350million in shares in a rebooted version of his multi-club group to Wolverhampton Wanderers’ owner Fosun Group, the Chinese conglomerate that has owned Wolves since 2016.
I would mention that the American businessman wants to replace Palace in Eagle Football Group (EFG), which also owns stakes in Brazilian side Botafogo, French team Olympique Lyonnais and Belgium’s RWDM Brussels, so he can proceed with his plan to float Eagle 2.0, although probably without Lyon, on the New York Stock Exchange.
I might weave in that Textor likes Wolves because of their long-standing policy of recruiting Portuguese players, which should make it easier for him to bring over players from Botafogo, as funnelling South American talent to Europe’s richest markets is part of Eagle’s business model.
In regards to Fosun, I would write that it is the last man standing from the wave of Chinese investors who came to England a decade ago. The rest have drifted away, bedraggled and unmourned, which is a fate Fosun faces, too, as Wolves are currently bottom of the Premier League. But I would also add that this offer is unlikely to be accepted, as Fosun is not interested in Textor’s Eagle shares and only wants to sell a minority stake.
And then I would wrap it up by saying if Textor is going to buy an English club again, it is more likely to be a Championship side (I would let readers insert their own Wolves-related gag here) as they are cheaper and more suited to his multi-club approach. This is why he has also been looking at Charlton Athletic, Derby County, Queens Park Rangers, Sheffield Wednesday and Watford, to name just five.
But I am not going to write a story like that because, while all of the above is true, it is not quite what is going on here.
Textor’s bid for Wolves, which was sent via Moelis, the bank Fosun is using to market its shares in the West Midlands-based club, came in the same week a court in Brazil ruled that actions he took to ring-fence Botafogo from this summer’s turmoil at Lyon, where he was forced to step down as club president, had to be reversed.
The ruling did not really change much on the ground at Botafogo, who last year won an historic Brazilian/South American double, as it simply confirmed the uneasy truce that has prevailed within EFG ever since Textor managed to talk Lyon’s way out of an administrative relegation to Ligue 2. His exit from a decision-making role at the French club was part of the price paid to avoid that fate, but he remains the majority shareholder at EFG, their parent company.
Unfortunately, Eagle is not a happy camp at the moment as its main lender, Ares Management, has been trying to claw back big chunks of the $425million (£320million) it lent Textor to buy Lyon in 2022. He has already given Ares most of the proceeds from the sale of his Palace stake and was forced to accept the imposition of an independent director at EFG to oversee Ares’ interests elsewhere in the group.
That director, a Scottish lawyer called Christopher Mallon, has recently stood down for ill health, but he has been replaced by another insolvency expert, and Ares and Textor continue to discuss whether it is best for them to divorce, perhaps with Textor keeping Botafogo and Ares getting Lyon, or patch things up and recommit to the multi-club plan.
In the meantime, however, Textor is involved in another disagreement with another of EFG’s shareholders, Iconic Sports Eagle Investment, a special purpose vehicle set up by American investors James Dinan and Alexander Knaster.
This is even more complicated than the Ares row, but it can be boiled down to Iconic believing it had an insurance policy for its $75million investment in EFG that obliged Textor to buy back Iconic’s EFG shares for a set price, plus interest, if Iconic’s plan to take EFG public failed. It did fail, in 2023, but Textor did not buy back the shares within the agreed 12 months, and they have been arguing ever since.
Textor made a bid for Wolves (David Rogers/Getty Images)
In the week following Textor’s Wolves bid, a court in Florida ruled against his request to have the dispute heard on home territory, as EFG is a UK-based company and his deal with Iconic made it clear that any disputes should be settled in English courts. That was on the Monday.
On the Wednesday, he appeared at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in a separate row with Atlanta United and Major League Soccer over $6million in transfer instalments for Thiago Almada, the Argentina midfielder Botafogo bought from Atlanta in 2024 but has since moved to Atletico Madrid.
That row is only marginally less complicated than the Iconic bust-up, as Textor is threatening to challenge MLS’s single-entity structure in court and spark a class-action lawsuit against the league over the shares of transfer fees that MLS players should be due but are often waived. Atlanta and MLS have wisely kept quiet while CAS mulls things over.
Then on Friday October 17, an English court ruled against Textor’s application to have Iconic’s claim against him, which is now worth $93million (£70million) plus costs, thrown out. The matter will go to a full trial next year, but Iconic can take more comfort from the judge’s line of reasoning in the case than Textor.
And just to complete the picture, Textor has also recently lost two cases in Belgium, where he had accused RWDM Brussels’ former owner Thierry Dailly of fraud, and is still facing legal action from ex-Botafogo manager Bruno Lage over jobs Lage may or may not have been offered elsewhere within EFG. Lage is more famous in England for his stint managing… Wolves.
So, hopefully, you can see why Textor’s Wolves bid is not just another news story — like an iceberg or a swan, there is a lot going on below the surface.
But say what you like about the former FuboTV chairman, he is still standing, still arguing his case, still trying to buy clubs. Defeat in the Iconic case would probably put a stop to that, but until then — and it may not happen — the rodeo continues.
Fosun and Textor declined to comment.
How to blame your Dragan
We head south next, where Southampton have somehow managed to win only four games in 17 months.
This woeful form got them relegated from the Premier League last season with seven games to spare, and they are now 20th in the Championship, only three points above the relegation zone.
This is all rather disappointing for the club’s owner Dragan Solak, who bought them in 2022 when they were a Premier League side but has now seen them relegated twice in three and a half years, although there was a promotion to cheer in 2024.
This was not the plan when the Serbian billionaire arrived on the south coast and started to build Sport Republic, a multi-club group led by Southampton, with strategic outposts in France, Mali and Turkey. Of these, only Turkey’s Goztepe have enjoyed much success, gaining promotion to the top flight last year, while France’s Valenciennes have dropped to the third tier on his watch.
These on-field setbacks have been mirrored by problems at Solak’s day job, which used to be sitting on the board of the company he founded in 2007, United Group. I say “used to be” as its majority owner, British investment firm BC Partners, sacked him and the company’s CEO, a long-time Solak ally, this summer.
The full details of this story are better suited for the pages of a real business outlet, as opposed to one that specialises in a pretend business like football, but, as you have twisted my arm, I will give you a summary.
United Group is a collection of advertising firms, pay-TV channels and telecoms companies in the wider Balkans region. Its headquarters are in the Netherlands, but it is registered in Luxembourg. Solak, now 61, built the group by reinvesting profits and topping that up with investors’ money.
BC Partners bought a controlling stake from American private equity firm KKR in 2018 and has run it ever since, although Solak owns about 36 per cent of the company, with other managers owning another 10 per cent.
Solak (centre) has said the situation will not impact Southampton (Dan Mullan/Getty Images)
BC Partners, as PE firms are wont to do, has been looking to sell United Group for some time and had hoped Solak would sell his shares, too. However, they have bickered about strategy, prompting Solak to explore a management buyout, which BC believes has hurt its chances of achieving a sale.
This came to a head in June when there was also a disagreement over a bonus Solak was owed for the sale of United Group’s Serbian telco and pay-TV channels to the country’s state-backed telco. Solak eventually got his bonus, a cool €250million (£218million), but he lost his job.
And last week he lost his attempt to persuade a Dutch court to reverse that decision, with the court deciding it did not have jurisdiction over a Luxembourg-based company.
In a statement published on its website, United Group said the ruling “confirms what has been clear all along: this was never a genuine governance dispute, but another in a long line of distractions orchestrated by Solak for his own ends”.
In response, a spokesperson for Solak told The Athletic: “Whilst it is disappointing for me, (the ruling) has no impact on Sport Republic or Southampton. If anything, I can now devote even more of my time to ensuring the club’s success and sustainability, both on and off the pitch.”
Whether this puts to bed the rumours that have been circulating about his interest levels in reversing Southampton’s slump remains to be seen, as many club brokers believe the South Coast side are in play, particularly as they still have a season and a half of Premier League parachute money to play with.
That said, Solak knows that, too, and would appear to have more time on his hands now. So, maybe we should believe him.
DAZN deja vu
Having visited Luxembourg and the Netherlands already in this column, let us conclude by completing the “low countries” set with an item from Belgium, where several club owners have contacted The Business of Football to say words to the effect of, “Hey, have you seen what DAZN is up to?”
This relates to the talks the UK-based sports streamer has started with Belgium’s Jupiler Pro League about the five-year, €420million (£366million) domestic rights deal they agreed in May.
While that was already a discount of almost 20 per cent on what it paid for the previous five-year cycle from 2020 to 2025, DAZN appears to be concerned it overpaid and would like to renegotiate.
If this sounds familiar, it is OK, you have seen this film before, as it is what DAZN did with the French league at the beginning of last season.
That ended with DAZN agreeing to pay a penalty fee to rip up the contract, forcing the French leagues to set up their own direct-to-consumer (DTC) platform, Ligue 1+, a move that might pay off in the long run but has left clubs with huge holes in their budgets where cheques from pay-TV partners used to land.
Could the same thing happen in Belgium?
DAZN declined to comment, but Pierre Maes, a former Canal+ executive and the author of two books on sports rights, believes Belgian football will avoid having to make the same choice, as there are still alternatives to DAZN in the Belgian market.
“In the last cycle, more than 80 per cent of DAZN’s revenues came from the Belgian telcos Telenet, Proximus and Orange in distribution fees,” Maes explains.
“But their interest is much lower today, and they don’t want to help DAZN to recoup its upfront investment of €420million for the 2025-2030 rights. The gap between the parties is big and, despite months of talks, the telcos haven’t backed down.
“It is impossible for DAZN to live with a structural loss over the contract, so they had no choice but to knock on the Pro League’s door to reopen negotiations on the price.
“But the clubs only will go DTC if the TV money equals zero. I don’t see this happening. Even if DAZN walks away, the Pro League should be able to make a direct deal with the telcos. The price would be around €50million (£44million) per season, but that is enough to dissuade them from a perilous DTC adventure.”
So, it is bad in Belgium… but not dreadful, a cheery note on which to finish.
