John Textor on Monday stepped down from leading Olympique Lyonnais and handed the reins to Washington Spirit owner Michele Kang, while the UEFA said it’s delaying its decision on whether the French club and Crystal Palace comply with multi-club ownership rules until Lyon’s relegation fate is clear.

Textor has been trying to solve the multi-club ownership issue, including with the recent agreement to sell his 43% stake in Crystal Palace to Jets owner Woody Johnson. UEFA rules stipulate that clubs with common shareholders cannot play in the same European competition in the same season, but both Crystal Palace of the U.K. and Olympique Lyonnais of France have qualified for the 2025–26 UEFA Europa League tournament.

A UEFA ruling on whether Crystal Palace will be allowed to play in next season’s Europa League was expected Monday, but the organization announced it is postponing a decision because Lyon was relegated last week by the French soccer regulator, DNCG, over apparent financial issues. In order to qualify for a tournament like Europa League, a team must play in the top tier for its country, so if Lyon’s relegation stands, it no longer qualifies for Europa League. Lyon has appealed the relegation decision, and until that is decided the UEFA will hang tight.

Separately on Monday, Lyon announced that Textor is stepping down from his leadership positions at the club, including departing its board of directors. He will be replaced in day-to-day management of the club by Kang, who will take over as chairwoman and CEO of both Eagle Football Group—the holding company that owns teams including Lyon—and Lyon itself. Textor will still own a majority stake in Lyon through Eagle Football, which took over the club in 2022.

Kang said in Monday’s statement that this is a “critical moment” for Lyon and she is focused on “supporting the club through the DNCG process and beyond.”

Textor said he is “grateful to everyone at [Lyon] for their dedication during this exceptionally challenging time,” and called Kang a “perfect choice” to lead the club moving forward.

Kang, who owns a majority stake in the Lyon women’s team and already sat on the board of directors for Eagle Football, is a major player in the world of soccer. Not only is she owner of the NWSL’s Spirit, she is one of the most prolific investors in girls and women’s soccer worldwide.

In November, Kang made a $30 million donation to U.S. Soccer, the largest gift in federation history, money which is largely going toward youth development. Last July, Kang announced a $50 million donation to support female health initiatives in women’s sports and started her own sports science nonprofit to see it through. Last year she also gave $4 million to the U.S. women’s rugby program after it won Bronze at the Paris Olympics, and she has invested in the media company Just Women’s Sports, as well as IDA Sports, a company that makes women’s soccer cleats.

Kang, 66, built her fortune off her health-care technology company, Cognosante, and her venture capital firm, Cognosante Ventures. She first joined the NWSL’s Spirit with a 35% stake in 2020 and bought majority ownership of the team for $35 million in 2022. She is also part of the group that bought MLB’s Orioles last year.

The reported investigation into free agent Malik Beasley over gambling-related allegations represents at least the third NBA player caught up in a sports betting scandal in the last year-and-a-half, highlighting the challenge that comes with the league’s growing ties to sports betting.

Beasley, 28 and coming off one of his best seasons (16 points per game and almost 42% from three), is reportedly under investigation by the U.S. District Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York. The investigation, first reported by ESPN on Sunday, reportedly centers on bets on NBA games from the 2023–24 season, when Beasley was with the Bucks, and “prop” bets—which are wagers not tied to the outcome of a game, but instead something else, such as how many rebounds a player will have in a given game.

NBA spokesman Mike Bass told Front Office Sports in an emailed statement that the league is “cooperating with the federal prosecutors’ investigation.” A representative for the U.S. District Attorney’s Office declined to comment, and Beasley’s attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

It remains to be seen what will happen with Beasley, who at this point has not been charged with a crime. He played for the Pistons last season and was reportedly in talks about a new three-year, $42 million contract, although those discussions have reportedly been paused amid the probe.

Beasley is the third NBA player to face gambling-related accusations in under two years. In January, it came out that Terry Rozier was reportedly under investigation for alleged point shaving related to games when he was with the Hornets. Rozier, currently under contract with the Heat for one more season, has also not been charged with a crime or penalized by the NBA.

Beasley and Rozier are both far more well known for their on the court abilities than the third player who has had gambling-related issues, Jontay Porter. Porter, younger brother of Nets forward Michael Porter Jr., is the only one of the trio who has faced consequences to date. He was banned from the NBA for life last April for violating NBA rules by giving injury information to gamblers, betting on NBA games himself, and manipulating his own playing availability for betting purposes. In July 2024, Porter pled guilty to a federal charge for his role in the scheme and admitted he took himself out of games to make sure certain bets would hit, because he was in gambling debt to others who have also been accused of sports betting-related crimes.

It’s a troubling trend for the league, which has been trying to walk the fine line between protecting the integrity of the game and pushing into the world of sports betting—including through formal partnerships with betting giants like FanDuel and DraftKings— since the 2018 U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA), which had effectively prohibited sports betting outside Nevada and a handful of states with sports lotteries. 

The NBA is not the only league that has grappled with this issue since the Supreme Court ruling. In 2023, five NFL players were suspended for violating the league’s gambling policy. Before that, Falcons wide receiver Calvin Ridley was suspended for the entire 2022 season after being caught betting on games.

In October 2023, the NHL suspended Senators player Shane Pinto for about half the season due to violations of the league’s sports betting rules. 

It isn’t just pro sports, either. In 2023, several current and former Iowa and Iowa State athletes, including quarterback Hunter Dekkers, pled guilty to underage gambling charges as part of a wider state probe.

All the major U.S. pro sports leagues prohibit players from betting on their own league’s games, and some also restrict betting on other sports. While the specific rules vary, the core principle exists across all the leagues: protecting the integrity of the game and avoiding the appearance of conflicts of interest. The NCAA’s rules are even more strict. Players are completely barred from sports betting.

Even in retirement, Michael Jordan is still breaking records. But this latest one has experts scratching their heads.

A signed 1986 Fleer Jordan rookie card sold at auction Thursday for $2.5 million, the highest price ever paid for that particular card, according to Darren Rovell’s sports collectibles media platform Cllct. It significantly leaps a signed 1986 Fleer Jordan rookie card that went for $1.008 million in 2022.

The deal comes with some mystery. The winning bid of $2 million was the only bid—the total value of the sale rises to $2.5 million because the auction house, Joopiter, charges a 25% buyer’s premium (experts say that’s pretty standard). 

“It’s a shocking amount of money,” Will Stern, a reporter and editor at Cllct, tells Front Office Sports. “I don’t think there’s anybody who I spoke to within the industry that expected this.”

That opinion is shared by Michael Osacky, president of sports cards and memorabilia appraiser Baseball in the Attic, who tells FOS that the “fair market value” of this card is about $1 million.

“I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but I have some doubts [about the auction],” he says. “The value seems so preposterous.”

Although there was only one bid, Joopiter tells FOS the “sale had strong activity from potential buyers in 50 countries.” 

The buyer is not being identified, which Osacky says is typical “unless the buyer has a big enough ego and purposely wants to disclose it was them.” 

The sale is a big splash for Joopiter—which was founded in 2022 by singer and music producer Pharrell Williams and is backed by venture capital firm Lightspeed Venture Partners—as it represents the company’s first foray into sports items. Previous items auctioned by Joopiter include Williams’ own clothing and memorabilia, as well as special edition Nike sneakers.

There are valid reasons for why the Jordan card would be so highly valued. Not only did it receive a nine out of 10 grade for its condition and 10 out of 10 grade for the autograph, it’s part of a batch of the Fleer rookie cards that Jordan secretly signed last year in Florida. The fact that Jordan journeyed to Florida to sign these cards—he didn’t even get paid to do so, according to Cllct—is more than surprising.

“Something like this only comes around so often,” Osacky says.

Joopiter has plans for further sports auctions, although it would not share any specifics. Caitlin Donovan, global head of sale for the auction house, tells FOS “we look forward to building on this milestone as we continue to offer extraordinary pieces in this dynamic market.”

The sports collectibles market had been somewhat dormant before reigniting during the COVID-19 pandemic. Card collecting has attracted the all-important youth demographic. Interest in trading cards is high among Gen Z and the younger Gen Alpha, who in particular are chasing numbered, rare, and ultra-modern cards, manufactured in the past eight years.