Woody Johnson completes purchase of Eagle Football's share in Crystal Palace

New York Times

4 days ago

The Premier League has approved Woody Johnson's purchase of a 42.92 per cent stake in Crystal Palace from John Textor's Eagle Football Holdings.
Textor agreed to the sale in late June with the deal becoming subject to ratification.
The league's owners' and directors' test typically takes around two months but Johnson has owned NFL franchise the New York Jets for the past 25 years, which helped allow for the process to be completed more quickly. He was then approved by the Premier League board and the sale was ratified by an Independent Oversight Panel.
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Johnson, 78, was the United States ambassador to the United Kingdom from 2017 to 2021 and is estimated to hold a net worth of $3.3billion (£2.5bn), per Forbes.
He has owned the Jets since 2000 after purchasing the franchise in a deal worth $635million. He was also a contender to buy Chelsea from Roman Abramovich in 2022 before the Premier League club, a London rival of Palace's, was instead bought by the Todd Boehly-Clearlake Capital consortium.
'I am honoured and privileged to be joining the ownership group of Crystal Palace Football Club.' Johnson said. It is an organisation with a proud history, tradition, and deep roots in English football in South London, which I came to admire during my time as U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom.
'This is more than an investment – it's a commitment to realising the vision for the club, the community, and the culture around Selhurst Park.'
The sale marks the end of Textor's four years as the fourth general partner at Palace, alongside chairman Steve Parish and fellow U.S. businessmen Josh Harris and David Blitzer.
The deal did not, however, prevent FA Cup-winners Palace from being ejected from the Europa League on July 11, after a UEFA panel found that the club breached the European governing body's multi-club ownership rules – because Eagle also owns a majority stake in French club Olympique Lyonnaise.
Lyon also qualified for the competition and take precedence over Palace because of their higher league finish – 6th in Ligue 1 over 12th in the Premier League – domestically last season.
Palace have subsequently been demoted to the Conference League, with Nottingham Forest taking their place in the Europa League – the south London club are appealing UEFA's decision with the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
Speaking to The Athletic last month, Textor explained: 'I believe Eagle is probably known to be the most collaborative multi-club in terms of the player movements between the clubs. We have something called roster optimisation where we are looking at what each player needs and wants and what each club needs and wants, and then we fill the gaps in our squads.
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'Collaboration helped us (Lyon) bounce off of the relegation zone at mid-season right in the Europa League and now in our second season in the Europa League, that comes from collaboration. It has helped us go from second division to champions of South America (with Botafogo) and collaboration is how we just beat PSG.
'It has disappointed me that our English league partner (Palace) has chosen not to accept any of our obviously qualified players from top teams, top leagues, and top national teams, and so to really promise player pathways to the players that we meet in different parts of the world, we have to have a collaborative UK partner. It's a must.
'It is our promise to the athletes, it's our promise to the community. That collaboration needs to go two ways and it doesn't currently with Crystal Palace. That's the reason we chose to sell.
'We're turnaround guys, we like a construction project. There's nothing more exciting for me than the idea of buying a second division team and getting promoted. But we might also look in the Premier League if we think there's a real opportunity to catapult a team from mid-table to upper-table, we think we're capable of doing that.
'Our strategy for Palace was to get to the Europa League every year, not just off of a cup win every hundred years.'
Textor initially bought a 40 per cent stake in August 2021, investing £87.5m into Palace, but had been left frustrated by the lack of collaboration over his multi-club project. He has disagreed with Parish over the direction of Palace and failed to increase his shareholding to take a controlling stake.
'We've reached the point where we have a significant investment in a club we hold in the minority (in Palace),' Textor told The Athletic last year. 'We're 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 … it just becomes more and more clear that that level of collaboration we want and need works.'
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Eagle Football, which also holds controlling stakes in Brazilian top-flight club Botafogo and Belgian side Daring Brussels, 'is simply not a perfect fit for Crystal Palace,' he added.
The 59-year-old last year explored the possibility of buying fellow Premier League club Everton 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).
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's 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.
Other offers were received by Eagle, believed to be in excess of that offered by Johnson, but they came too late.
Parish, Blitzer and Harris had the right of first offer to buy Eagle's 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.
After several false starts, and months of switching between trying to sell and hoping to take control at Palace, Textor has finally departed the club.
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.
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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's owners.
Johnson is the former U.S. ambassador to the U.K, taking up the role during President Donald Trump's first term in 2016. He is heir to the Johnson & Johnson pharmaceutical company's fortune.