EBetween rumors and successive reports, the affair has kept the club’s supporters in suspense for six months. The American holding Eagle Football Holding, managed by the multimillionaire John Textor, became, Monday, December 19, the majority shareholder of the OL Group, which includes the football club Olympique Lyonnais. The announcement was made via a press release from OL Groupe, in which the American investor affirms that “a new story begins today”. “Today represents a new beginning for Olympique Lyonnais […]we are proud to reach this exceptional agreement”, continues John Textor.
As agreed, Jean-Michel Aulas, 73 and boss of the club since 1987, “will keep the operational presidency of Olympique Lyonnais for at least three years and will remain surrounded by his team”, he specifies. In 35 years of presidency, Aulas has transformed OL from the status of a tinkering association club in D2 with a budget of 3 million euros into a listed company, a flagship of the entertainment and media sector, valued for its takeover around 800 million euros. Not to mention seven consecutive titles of champion of France (2002-2008) and two semi-finals of the Champions League (2010-2020).
A historic agreement
This agreement “will be a landmark in the history of the development of European football, but also internationally thanks to the grouping together within the same structure, Eagle Football, of our interests in football clubs rich in their culture and their experience acquired over the decades: Olympique Lyonnais, Crystal Palace, Botafogo and RWD Molenbeek” – respectively French, English, Brazilian and Belgian clubs – continues the American investor.
Eagle Football undertook at the end of June to acquire all the shares and half of the Osranes (bonds convertible into shares issued to finance the construction of Groupama Stadium, editor’s note) held by Holnest, the Aulas family holding company. Plus all the shares held by Pathé and the Chinese investment fund IDG Capitals, two shareholders who announced their intention to sell in March.
Eagle Groupe has also planned to subscribe to a capital increase of 86 million euros which should allow OL Groupe to repay loans in an accelerated manner and to strengthen the team in order to try to find the European elite. And, as expected, “Eagle Football will file as soon as possible […] a simplified takeover bid, in cash, for shares and Osranes that it does not own at a price of three euros per share and 265.57 euros per Osrane,” the press release further specifies.
The composition of the company’s board of directors has evolved to “reflect this change in ownership”, according to OLG’s text. But John Textor does not detail in this press release the names of the “respected and experienced” investors who have “made substantial commitments” to join his “ambitious project”.
A pioneer of virtual reality
By presenting himself in Lyon, the American, aged 56, had underlined the double strength of the OL brand “in sport and entertainment” by saying his intention to make it “the epicenter” of his projects linked to the soccer.
This former professional skateboarder and former computer programmer has made a name for himself in the virtual world, from special effects in cinema to digital creation by artificial intelligence and then to the streaming of live sporting events. In 2016, the magazine Forbes portrays him as a “virtual reality guru in Hollywood”, thus consecrating his activity in this market, as his biography on his website recalls.
From 2006 to 2012, he chaired the board of directors of Digital Domain, a special effects studio for the big screen created by Canadian director James Cameron. In addition to his participation in the special effects of films such as transformers, Tron: Legacy and a part of the saga Pirates of the Caribbeanthe studio made a name for itself by aging ultra-realistically Brad Pitt in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008). But the company is placed in the US bankruptcy regime in 2012.
John Textor then launched Pulse Evolution, which develops holograms, in particular of deceased stars, with in 2012 an appearance in a Californian festival by American rapper Tupac Shakur, who died in 1996, or in 2014, a Michael Jackson at the Billboard Music Awards. Two performances viewed millions of times on YouTube.
The Missouri-born businessman then branched out into artificial intelligence. He created EvolutionAI to dedicate himself to “creating digital humans that help improve humanity,” as he puts it on his website.
Buyer of Botafogo
Then, he turned to sports by co-founding FuboTV, a streaming service focused on the live broadcast of sporting events. He is trying to take control of the Portuguese clubs Benfica and Sporting Lisbon before succeeding in entering the capital of the London club Crystal Palace (Premier League) in August 2021, with 40% of the shares.
He finally seized Botafogo, a historic Brazilian club, by taking over 90% of its capital and getting his hands on 80% of the shares of RWD Molenbeek, which aims to return to the elite of Belgian football. At the time, Thierry Dailly, president of the Belgian club, presented him as a “football enthusiast”. His fiery tweets on Botafogo attest to this, even if he is first and foremost a businessman. “Football is no different from any other business. You have to win to be profitable,” he told CNN in March.
From report to report, the completion of the sale of OL took on the appearance of a soap opera and made supporters doubt its financial capacities. “Be aware that transactions like this can be quite complicated for buyers and sellers,” he wrote in mid-October on his website to calm negative rumors. Two months later, however, he ended up completing his funding round.