Wolverhampton Wanderers supporters have been calling on Fosun Group to sell the football club for years, with John Texter the latest businessman to become involved in a takeover bid.
Controversial former Crystal Palace owner John Texter has made an offer worth £400m to buy Wolverhampton Wanderers amid fan anger over Molineux’s current ownership. Wolves are the only team without a win in the Premier League this season. In fact, they are the only team in English football’s top six divisions without a win.
Wanderers lost to Burnley in stoppage time on Sunday, leaving them bottom of the table and six points clear of safety. After the final whistle, home fans were heard singing songs against current owner Fosun, who has owned the club since 2016, and confronted manager Vitor Pereira with a chant: “You’ll be fired in the morning.”
As first revealed by The Athletic, Texter, who sold a minority stake in Crystal Palace in the summer, is keen to add Wolves to his multi-club portfolio. It is reported that an offer of £150m and a further £262.6m in shares has been made to take over the Wanderers.
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Textor currently owns stakes in Brazil’s Botafogo, France’s Olympique Lyonnais and Belgium’s RWDM Brussels. The American businessman likes Wolves’ long-standing policy of recruiting Portuguese players, following the Eagle Football Group (EFG) model of bringing South American talent to the European market.
However, Wolves officials continue to insist they are not for sale and are simply looking for additional outside investment.
Mr Texter’s bid for Wolves comes in the same week that a Brazilian court ruled that he must resign as Lyon club president and reverse his actions to protect Botafogo. Texter managed to avoid Lyon’s administrative relegation to Ligue 2 in the summer, maintaining his role as a key decision-maker in France. He is expected to remain the largest shareholder of Lyon’s parent company, EFG.
There is also an ongoing legal dispute with main lender Ares Management, which is seeking to recover the $425m (£320m) it lent to Textor to buy Lyon three years ago. Discussions continue to reach a conclusion, resulting in Textor keeping Botafogo and Ares acquiring Lyon.
Another disagreement, this time with EFG shareholder Iconic Sports Eagle Investments, believes it has an insurance policy on its $75 million investment in EFG that allows Textor to buy back Iconic’s EFG shares at a set price if the EFG listing plan fails. That happened in 2023, but Textor did not buy back the shares within the agreed 12 months.
The week after he proposed buying Wolves, a Florida court ruled against Tekito’s request to have the case heard in the UK because EFG is a UK-based company. He then went to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in a separate case involving Atlanta United and Major League Soccer over the transfer fee installments of Thiago Almada, who joined Botafogo from Atlanta and moved to Atletico Madrid.
On Friday, October 17, a British court ruled against Texter’s application to dismiss Iconic’s claims worth £70 million. A full-scale trial is scheduled to take place next year.
All this happened after the Americans lost two lawsuits in Belgium accusing former RWDM Brussels owner Thierry Daly of fraud. He is also facing legal action from former Wolves and Botafogo manager Bruno Large over whether he was offered elsewhere within the EFG.
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