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Washington Spirit owner Michele Kang has agreed to buy Olympique Lyonnais in a deal that would sever the French soccer club’s ties to John Textor’s Eagle Football Holdings.
Under the transaction, an entity controlled by Kang called Olympe Bidco SAS will pay $30 million for an 87.8% stake in the soccer club while pledging to inject up to $80.8 million (€71 million) of fresh capital into the organization over the next two seasons, according to statements from Lyon and Eagle Football Group (Eagle Football Group is a publicly traded entity that owns and operates Lyon, while Eagle Football Holdings is a private holding company formed by Textor to own his stakes in teams; following this transaction, it would still hold stakes in Brazil’s Botafogo and Belgium’s RWDM Brussels).
The agreement remains subject to certain conditions, including Lyon maintaining its spot in the top French soccer league, Ligue 1. It is expected to close by June 30.
Once the deal for 87.8% of Lyon is wrapped up, Kang will file a tender offer to acquire the remaining shares, giving minority shareholders the ability to exit. The expectation is that the tender offer will be made by October.
“It is with a great sense of responsibility and immense honor that I am joining this process of taking over Olympique Lyonnais today,” Kang said in Tuesday’s statement.
Kang’s takeover comes about three months after Ares Management, a private credit firm that lent millions to Eagle Football Holdings, appointed Cork Gully as administrator of Eagle Football Holdings—a process that gave Cork Gully control of the holding company but not the clubs themselves, with the aim of managing its debts and potentially selling assets so creditors could get repaid. Ares will continue to have a notes-holder interest in Lyon but will not own any direct stake in the team or have any board representation.
Almost exactly a year ago, Kang assumed operational control of Lyon when Textor stepped down from his leadership positions, including departing its board of directors. Then, Kang took over as chairwoman and CEO, while Textor at the time maintained a majority stake in the club through Eagle Football Holdings.
Following Tuesday’s announcement, Textor seems set to lose his stake in Lyon to Kang, who also owns a majority stake in the Lyon women’s team. But he believes Kang hoodwinked him. In February, he told Front Office Sports that behind the scenes, Kang made “one hell of a power play” by entering into a “secret” side agreement with Ares that included the establishment of a “shadow board,” the existence of which Textor discovered only after he had stepped down and already entrusted her to manage the club.
On Wednesday, he told FOS that “Michele seems to have done it again. Smear, divide, and conquer. It worked with the Washington Spirit, so why not try again? Why buy a club when you can steal it?”
Textor has previously laid out the timeline from his perspective, and he claimed the actions taken by Ares and Kang will get them in hot water with Autorité des marchés financiers, the markets regulator in France. “They took over the club without due process,” Textor told FOS in February. “They concealed it.”
In April, Textor filed a confidential criminal complaint against Kang with a French prosecutorial authority called Parquet National Financier. That month, he also demanded her resignation in a letter sent to the Eagle Football Group board that was viewed by FOS. The letter says the board “must accept responsibility for knowingly allowing” Kang to consolidate control “without any public disclosure,” and it claims there have been “obvious signs of accounting irregularities and private corruption.”
