John Textor confirms plans to buy new UK club after Crystal Palace sale and announces he's quitting Lyon amid fan protest against American investor

Palace, who stunned Manchester City in the 2025 FA Cup final, faced the threat of being removed from the Europa League next season due to being in breach of UEFA’s multi-club ownership rules. Textor held a 45 per cent stake in the Eagles while also overseeing events at Ligue 1 outfit Lyon, who are also due to take part in the Europa League. However, Textor has struck a deal with Woody Johnson, who owns the Jets NFL franchise, to buy his stake in the English team.

That does not mean his involvement in English football is over, though, as he told TV Globo: "We now have to look at our strategy in the UK, which we need to study. What will our new club be? Who will we buy there? What will the partnership be like? Because it is this collaboration between clubs that has been very successful for us. We have obviously done a good job here. And at Lyon, I am very proud, we had a team that was relegated. They had not been to the Europa League for a while, we brought them back for two years in a row."

Lyon's relegation from Ligue 1 to Ligue 2 has sparked an angry reaction in France, with the team's supporters coming out to protest against Textor on Saturday. He has opted to step away from the club, confirming his desire to focus more on Brazilian club Botafogo.

He said: "I'm going to spend a lot more time thinking about Eagle globally, coming back to Botafogo more. I have great partners in Eagle Football Group, shareholders who are going to step up to deal with issues that I honestly wasn't very good at dealing with in France. I'm looking forward to reconnecting with Brazil. We're going to be fine there [in France]. We're going to put a strong face there.

"It's clear that I was better on the field when dealing with France. I didn't do so well in politics in France, that's well known. The process for me, as an American investor, to adapt to the system there has always been strange. But we are very well capitalised. We are going to invest a significant amount of money, we just sold Crystal Palace. We certainly don't have any financial difficulties; we've never had so much liquidity. But in the process, I did some things that disappointed the regulatory bodies there and we need to fix that."

With Textor formally out of Crystal Palace and Lyon, it remains to be seen if both clubs will now be able to take part in the Europa League in the coming season.