Former Crystal Palace owner John Textor has lost control of his Eagle Football multi-club empire after its main creditor, U.S. investment firm Ares Capital Corporation, put the group’s UK-based holding company into administration on Friday.
Eagle Football Holdings Bidco is now under the control of administrators from London-based insolvency firm Cork Gully, who will immediately start looking for buyers for Eagle’s majority stakes in Brazil’s Botafogo, French side Lyon and Belgium’s RWDM Brussels.
Bidco is the only part of the Eagle corporate structure under the administrator’s control, so none of the three remaining clubs in the Eagle group is directly affected by this move and will continue to operate as normal.
In a press release that announced their appointment, Cork Gully said Ares had been forced to take this drastic step because of “events of default under its financial agreements” with Eagle. These defaults include the company’s repeated failure to file accounts and other financial statements on time.
“We recognise the importance of Eagle Bidco’s role within the international football community and the concerns this news may cause for all stakeholders,” Cork Gully’s managing partner Stephen Cork said.
“Our immediate priority is to stabilise the company, manage its shareholdings responsibly, and work towards securing the future of the clubs involved. We invite interested parties to come forward and will be engaging with all stakeholders throughout this process.”
Textor, however, has reacted to the news with his customary mix of bravado and defiance.
In a statement published on its website, Eagle Football said it was “gravely offended by the unilateral and predatory decision” of Ares to “break apart a financially viable multi-club business” that Textor claims has turned “insolvent clubs into sporting success stories” which, even now, are “cashflow positive”.
He continued by claiming the “various technical events of default” were Ares’ fault and repeated his recent accusations about Ares colluding with fellow Eagle investor Michelle Kang to steal Lyon from under his nose.
“Ares is clearly not triggering administration with clean hands,” he said, before adding that he would work with the administrators to “hold Ares accountable for its actions, and clear violations of law, as we surely expect to regain control of our business”.
The New York-based firm does not appear to be rattled.
“Ares notes the highly misleading and inaccurate statements by John Textor and will defend its position through the proper legal channels,” an Ares spokesperson said in a short but pointed statement.
While Textor, who is already fighting on multiple legal fronts, will almost certainly challenge this move, it is very hard to see how this can be anything other than the end of a remarkable five-year run in global football that started in 2021, when he bought 40 per cent of Crystal Palace.
In truth, he has been in trouble ever since last year, when he was forced to hand over control of Lyon to Kang, the American businesswoman who owns controlling stakes in Lyon’s women’s team, WSL side London City Lionesses and the NWSL’s Washington Spirt.
Between those points, there were plenty of highs, most notably Botafogo’s historic league and Copa Libertadores double in 2024, as well as Crystal Palace’s 2025 FA Cup triumph over Manchester City, but also lots of lows, with the latter increasingly overshadowing the former.
The crisis at Lyon was sparked by his inability to generate enough money to pay off the high-interest loans he took from Ares, despite selling off the French club’s indoor arena, its brightest stars, half of its famous women’s team and Seattle Reign, its NWSL offshoot.
The alarming deterioration of Lyon’s balance sheet brought him into conflict with French football’s financial regulator, the DNCG, which threatened to relegate Lyon last year. This threat was only averted when Textor’s fellow investors in Eagle put more money into the club and he agreed to step away.
By this point, Textor’s difficult relationship with his Crystal Palace co-owners had finally come to an end as well, with the Florida-based businessman agreeing to sell his stake in the London club to New York Jets owner Woody Johnson for £190million ($250million).
But this divorce did not come soon enough to prevent Crystal Palace from falling foul of UEFA’s multi-club rules, which relegated the FA Cup winners from the Europa League to the less lucrative Conference League, because Lyon had also qualified for the Europa League. It was a messy end to a frustrating relationship. Textor could not even use the proceeds of that sale to plug the many holes that were appearing in Eagle, as Ares demanded the lot.
More recently, Textor has been desperately looking for fresh investors to help him pay off Ares, while Eagle’s clubs have all been forced to sell players and cut costs. There have also been numerous legal battles in Belgium, Brazil, England and the U.S. over missing payments, disputed loans and other contractual disputes.
But, despite all this, it is only in the last few months that Textor has stopped telling people he wants to buy even more clubs, as he has never stopped believing in his ability to make a success of the multi-club model, with his end goal being the flotation of Eagle Football on the New York Stock Exchange. It was only six months ago that he made an offer for Wolverhampton Wanderers.
That dream, and all of his other Eagle-related fantasise, is now over and fans of Botafogo, Lyon and RWDM Brussels will be hoping for a speedy return to a calmer existence under new custodians.