{"id":660928,"date":"2025-10-28T08:39:36","date_gmt":"2025-10-28T12:39:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?p=660928"},"modified":"2025-10-28T08:39:36","modified_gmt":"2025-10-28T12:39:36","slug":"wolves-takeover-john-textor-bid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2025\/10\/28\/wolves-takeover-john-textor-bid\/","title":{"rendered":"Major Wolves Ownership Proposal Comes With Serious Red Flags"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>John Textor has reportedly tabled an offer to acquire Wolverhampton Wanderers, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/TheAthleticFC\/status\/1982749488188985708\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The Athletic<\/a>. The offer is \u00a3149 million in cash and \u00a3262 million in shares. The pitch is ambitious, but it&#8217;s unlikely to be accepted. Wolves owners Fosun are reportedly not interested in absorbing Textor&#8217;s share offer structure and, more crucially, only intend to sell a minority stake in the club, not full control.<\/p>\n<h2>John Textor\u2019s \u00a3400 million Offer For Wolves Has Drawn Attention And Scepticism After Controversies At Lyon And Crystal Palace<\/h2>\n<h3>A Man With A Multi-club Empire And A History Of Controversy<\/h3>\n<p>Textor is no newcomer to football investment. His holding company, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eaglefootball.com\/clubs\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Eagle Football Holdings<\/a>, owns major stakes in clubs across several countries, most notably Olympique Lyonnais and Botafogo. His recent exit from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/football\/articles\/clyl2dzyvr4o\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Crystal Palace<\/a> in the Premier League followed a dramatic sequence of events. The side were penalised by UEFA and demoted from the Europa League to the Conference League for a breach of multi-club ownership rules, while Textor held stakes in both Palace and Lyon.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Read More:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2025\/10\/20\/wolves-next-manager-candidates\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Five managers Wolves Could Bring In If V\u00edtor Pereira Is Sacked<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The backlash from fans has been real. Among Eagles fans, the sense of frustration at the lack of transparency and the perception of commercial \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.goal.com\/en-gb\/lists\/john-textor-days-numbered-lyon-owner-faces-forced-out-debt-relegation-ligue-2-after-american-sold-crystal-palace-shares\/blta5b4761a114a06b1\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">asset flipping<\/a>\u201d grew. Similarly, at Lyon and in Belgium (with Molenbeek), his multi-club model has drawn criticism for layering investment risk over community identity.<\/p>\n<h3>What It Means For Wolves<\/h3>\n<p>For Wolves, the prospect of a takeover by Textor raises mixed signals. On one hand, his global network and focus on sourcing South American and Portuguese-speaking players might fit with the Wanderers&#8217; recruitment strategy. On the other hand, Fosun&#8217;s current stance is that the club isn&#8217;t for sale, but they are open to investment. This suggests they want to retain control and may be unwilling to relinquish ownership of the club, particularly when the offer isn&#8217;t 100% cash.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Read More:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2025\/10\/26\/promoted-teams-premier-league-survival-2025\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Why This Year\u2019s Premier League Promoted Teams Break the Relegation Cycle<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Additionally, Textor&#8217;s empire has not been without financial stress. His Eagle Group has been subject to legal claims and concerns about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/football\/2025\/07\/09\/crystal-palace-face-expulsion-from-europa-league\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">large-scale debt<\/a>, which raises questions among Wolves fans about his capacity to deliver stable, long-term investment rather than short-term profit.<\/p>\n<p>John Textor&#8217;s offer to the team sounds headline-grabbing, and in some ways it is. But the complexity of his ownership model, Wolves&#8217; own preferences and Fosun&#8217;s reluctance to sell majority control all make this a high-risk proposition. For fans, the question now is whether this bid is a genuine pathway to change or simply the latest chapter in the multi-club investment drama that has tripped up others before.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Featured Image Credits<\/strong><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_652748\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-652748\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-652748 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/03\/imago1059651614-300x189.jpg\" alt=\"wolves predicted lineup vs newcastle united\" width=\"300\" height=\"189\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/03\/imago1059651614-300x189.jpg 300w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/03\/imago1059651614-1024x646.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/03\/imago1059651614-768x485.jpg 768w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/03\/imago1059651614-1536x970.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2025\/03\/imago1059651614-2048x1293.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-652748\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">IMAGO \/ Action Plus, 8th March 2025 Molineux Stadium, Wolverhampton, West Midlands, England Premier League Football, Wolverhampton Wanderers versus Everton A general view of the outside of Molineux showing the stands PUBLICATIONxNOTxINxUK ActionPlus12757646 GodfreyxPitt<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>John Textor has reportedly tabled an offer to acquire Wolverhampton Wanderers, according to The Athletic. The offer is \u00a3149 million in cash and \u00a3262 million in shares. The pitch is ambitious, but it&#8217;s unlikely to be accepted. Wolves owners Fosun are reportedly not interested in absorbing Textor&#8217;s share offer structure and, more crucially, only intend [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5441,"featured_media":652748,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[30,3,2510],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-660928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-premier-league","category-wolves"],"modified_by":"Alex Richards, LWOF Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5441"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=660928"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660928\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":660973,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660928\/revisions\/660973"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/652748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=660928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=660928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=660928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}