{"id":8088,"date":"2025-06-23T13:33:18","date_gmt":"2025-06-23T13:33:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/8088\/"},"modified":"2025-06-23T13:33:18","modified_gmt":"2025-06-23T13:33:18","slug":"john-textor-agrees-to-sell-crystal-palace-stake-to-new-york-jets-owner-woody-johnson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/8088\/","title":{"rendered":"John Textor agrees to sell Crystal Palace stake to New York Jets owner Woody Johnson"},"content":{"rendered":"

John Textor has agreed a deal to sell Eagle Football\u2019s 43 per cent stake in Crystal Palace<\/a> to Woody Johnson, the owner of the New York Jets<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The sale will have to be ratified by the Premier League, with Johnson being the subject of the league\u2019s owners\u2019 and directors\u2019 test, a process which typically takes around two months. But with Johnson having owned the Jets NFL franchise for the past 25 years, it could be completed more quickly.<\/p>\n

Johnson has owned the Jets since 2000 after purchasing the franchise in a deal worth $635million. He was also a contender to buy Chelsea in 2022 before the Premier League club, a London rival of Palace\u2019s, was instead bought by the Todd Boehly-Clearlake Capital consortium.<\/p>\n

Johnson, 78, was the United States ambassador to the United Kingdom from 2017 to 2021 and is estimated to hold a net worth of $3.3 billion (\u00a32.5bn), per Forbes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Crystal Palace later confirmed the proposed sale. \u201cCrystal Palace Football Club can confirm that Robert Wood Johnson, \u2018Woody\u2019, an American businessman and co-owner of the New York Jets, has signed a legally binding contract to purchase Eagle Football\u2019s holding in the club,\u201d a statement read.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhilst the completion is pending approval from the Premier League and Women\u2019s Super League, we do not envisage any issues and look forward to welcoming Woody as a partner and director of the club.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe would like to go on record to thank John Textor for his contribution over the past four years and wish him every success for the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Should Johnson\u2019s purchase be approved, it will mark the end of Textor\u2019s four years as the fourth general partner at Palace, alongside chairman Steve Parish and fellow U.S. businessmen Josh Harris and David Blitzer.<\/p>\n

It has potentially positive implications for Palace\u2019s Europa League hopes, with UEFA deliberating over whether Eagle \u2014 via Textor \u2014 whose French side Lyon also qualified for the competition, has \u2018decisive influence\u2019 at Palace.<\/p>\n

There had been concerns over Palace\u2019s eligibility to compete in next season\u2019s competition<\/a> despite qualifying as FA Cup winners, due to Eagle\u2019s ownership of Lyon, where it holds a majority stake, putting them potentially at odds with UEFA\u2019s rules around multi-club ownership<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While the deadline for mitigations was March 1, UEFA may look favourably on the fact that Textor began the process of selling his shares in Palace last year, having hired Raine Group to find a suitable buyer. The deal, though, will not be completed before the governing body makes its decision.<\/p>\n

Textor initially bought a 40 per cent stake in August 2021, investing \u00a387.5m into the team but has been left frustrated by the lack of collaboration over his multi-club project at Palace. He has disagreed with Parish over the direction of the club and failed to increase his shareholding to take a controlling stake.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve reached the point where we have a significant investment in a club we hold in the minority (in Palace),\u201d he told The Athletic last year. \u201cWe\u2019re having extreme success in Brazil and early on in France, (and) to not have that same level of integration with our partner in the UK\u2026 it just becomes more and more clear that that level of collaboration we want and need works.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eagle Football, which also holds controlling stakes in Brazilian top-flight club Botafogo and Belgian side Daring Brussels, \u201cis simply not a perfect fit for Crystal Palace,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

The 59-year-old last year explored the possibility of buying fellow Premier League club Everton<\/a> before their purchase by the Friedkin Group, while he now has his sights set on Championship sides in England, with the hope that he can secure a new club before he begins his initial public offering (IPO).<\/p>\n

\"Crystal<\/p>\n

Crystal Palace won the FA Cup in May (Adrian Dennis\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Textor granted exclusivity to two groups in January, with a U.S. consortium of sport and entertainment executives originally backed by two Saudi brothers Haider and Mansoor Syed, having made an offer to buy Eagle\u2019s shares outright. Sportsbank, a sports investment group advised by the former Everton director and experienced football financier Keith Harris, was granted exclusivity to invest in Eagle. Both allowed their periods of exclusivity to lapse without concluding a deal. The U.S. group returned recently to hold talks with Textor with the intention of making an offer in excess of $200m with backing from an American group which has experience investing in soccer clubs.<\/p>\n

Other offers were received by Eagle, believed to be in excess of that offered by Johnson, but they came too late.<\/p>\n

Parish, Blitzer and Harris had the right of first offer to buy Eagle\u2019s stake in the south London soccer club and were approached by Textor, but according to sources familiar with the situation, their proposal fell short of being accepted.<\/p>\n

After several false starts, and months of switching between trying to sell and hoping to take control at Palace, Textor finally looks set to depart the club.<\/p>\n

What does this mean for Palace?<\/strong><\/p>\n

For now, not a huge amount will change. It is unclear how much Johnson intends to be involved in matters but Textor only had a minimal input in any case, with Parish remaining executive chairman. There is unlikely to be so much disagreement as with Textor given the other three general partners were required to give their approval to the sale.<\/p>\n

Palace are keen still to redevelop their Selhurst Park stadium, and have the option of funding via debt on the table, but Johnson is likely to be required to at least contribute some financial backing for it alongside the rest of the club\u2019s owners.<\/p>\n

It remains uncertain whether UEFA will accept the deal having been agreed subject to the owners\u2019 and directors\u2019 test as sufficient to admit Palace to the Europa League, but it may decide that Textor had no decisive influence.<\/p>\n

Further information was requested from Palace which raised hopes that they are leaning towards approving their participation in the competition. A decision is expected before the end of this month.<\/p>\n

Johnson is the former U.S. ambassador to the U.K, taking up the role during President Donald Trump\u2019s first term in 2016. He is heir to the Johnson & Johnson pharmaceutical company\u2019s fortune.<\/p>\n

(Top photos of John Textor and Woody Johnson: Lucas Figueiredo\/Getty Images \/ Ed Mulholland\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"John Textor has agreed a deal to sell Eagle Football\u2019s 43 per cent stake in Crystal Palace to…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":8089,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,9438,405,403,5287,5226,5225,5228,5227,220,222,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-8088","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-crystal-palace","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-city","12":"tag-new-york-jets","13":"tag-newyork","14":"tag-newyorkcity","15":"tag-ny","16":"tag-nyc","17":"tag-premier-league","18":"tag-sports-business","19":"tag-united-states","20":"tag-united-states-of-america","21":"tag-unitedstates","22":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","23":"tag-us","24":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114732938244950236","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8088"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8088\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}