John Textor, one of the largest shareholders in Crystal Palace, is supposed to have also been the owner of Lyon by now, and there’s frustration that the deal hasn’t yet been finalised.
Tuesday’s edition of L’Equipe reports Jean-Michel Aulas, the French club’s long time owner, has raised the possibility of terminating the deal. The idea is to put pressure on Textor, and the Eagle Football group, to hurry things up.
A press release on Monday morning spoke of delays, and gave a new date for completion of November 17th. The Crystal Palace shareholder is said to be ‘annoyed’ with the nudge from those currently in charge at Lyon, and as far as he’s concerned everything is just going through due process.
Textor is of the belief that previous completion dates, which were missed, were ‘unfeasible’, and L’Equipe say there’s an insistence Eagle Football have all the funds in place to please the French football authorities and complete the transaction. It’s just a case of getting everything finalised without too much rush.
The French newspaper state there’s still optimism the sale will go through, but there’s now clearly added friction between the parties involved.
