Emma, the editor at always wolves look at why a takeover from John Textor could be from the frying pan into the fire.
A £400m-plus bid for Wolves should feel like hope. John Textor’s offer reportedly mixes about $200m in cash with $350m in shares in a rebooted Eagle Football Group, his multi‑club vehicle.
The pitch is simple on paper: swap Crystal Palace out, drop Wolves in, lean on the club’s Portuguese pipeline, and channel talent from Botafogo into Europe, then float “Eagle 2.0” in New York.
It sounds bold. It also sounds distant from Wolves’ immediate reality. Fosun, through its advisers, is said to want only a minority sale and has little appetite for Eagle shares. On likelihood alone, this feels like a long shot.
But the bid matters because it forces a hard question: are Wolves trading slow, frustrating drift under Fosun for something far more volatile?
John Textor’s recent track record doesn’t shout stability. His group of clubs has been in trouble for about a year.
- He borrowed a lot of money from Ares Management to buy Lyon. Since then, lenders have kept a close eye on him, there’s been boardroom drama, and Lyon nearly got hit with an admin-style relegation. To calm things down, Textor stepped back from running Lyon day to day.
- There are legal issues on several fronts. In Brazil, there’s a fight over how he tried to protect Botafogo from Lyon’s problems. In the UK, an investor called Iconic Sports says he promised to buy back their shares if his stock market plan failed; that dispute is going to trial. At sport’s top court (CAS), there’s another case involving Atlanta United and MLS over payments linked to the Thiago Almada transfer.
- In Belgium, he also lost cases tied to Belgian side RWDM Brussels.
Put simply: heavy debt, lender pressure, and multiple lawsuits equal risk. That’s not the steady ownership Wolves need right now.
Wolves, bottom of the table and haemorrhaging trust, need clean lines: cash certainty, a competent football CEO, a recruitment plan built on proven Premier League profiles, and a manager shielded from boardroom storms. They do not need to become a keystone in a group restructuring play aimed at an eventual stock listing.
Fosun has earned the criticism. Strategy drift, cost‑first windows, and CEO decisions have led to managed decline. Yet swapping them for a bid that leans on equity in a contested holding company and a web of active disputes could turn erosion into whiplash. If lenders harden their stance or a court loss forces asset reshuffles, the shock won’t be theoretical. It will hit squads, budgets, and the dressing room.
So yes, this deal is unlikely. That might be the good news. The bad news is what it represents: a temptation to trade one flawed ownership story for a riskier one.
Wolves need fewer headlines and more football. Transparent ownership, ring‑fenced funding for survival, and a plan to rebuild. Until that exists, Textor’s rodeo is not an answer. It’s another gamble, and for Wolves, it looks like disaster waiting to happen.
ARTICLE BY EMMA
Emma is the producer and editor at Always Wolves. She is often behind the camera and does a lot of work behind the scenes including jobs like editing the podcasts, social media and the website. Emma is a passionate Wolves fan who follows the team home and away.
1 Comment
by David Sims
What we need is a Fosun (2016-2020) who were ambitious, interested, invested and prepared to spend the money necessary to achieve success. Right now I’m so desperate that I’d take almost anyone to replace the Fosun (2020-2025) clowns we have now. Jeff Shi is arrogant yet incompetent and out of his depth. Fosun need to sell us asap or we will end up in League 1 two years from now.