About this post. This is a right of reply, published under The Esk’s corrections policy. It gives John Textor’s response to three Analysis Series articles: the administrators’ six-month progress report (7 November 2026), OL Groupe’s 2025/26 annual report (27 October 2026) and, where relevant, my review of his Eagle Football memoranda (18 October 2026). It draws on three documents he sent me personally, dated 2 November and 7 November 2026.
What Mr Textor says here is his opinion and his account of events. Much of it has not been tested by any court or regulator, or against documents I have been able to examine. Several of his points rely on private documents. These include the 7 July 2025 side letter, the 26 June 2026 deed of release, lender notices and board records. Publishing his response does not mean “The Esk” accepts it. Where I disagree, I say so, under “My view”.
The summary is in my words. Passages in quotation marks are his. It covers his account of his own position. He also makes allegations about the knowledge and intentions of other people. I have not reproduced them, because they are untested and the people concerned have not had the chance to answer. Where his case is set out in public court filings, I link to my analysis of those filings. At his request, people other than Mr Textor are referred to by role.
1. Corrections and clarifications made as a result
Mr Textor’s comments identified points in the two most recent articles that needed correcting or clarifying. Each article now carries a dated note.
The administrators’ progress report (7 November 2026)
- Correction: who released his current account. The article said his personal current account “appears to have been released by his lender’s agent”. Ares Capital Corporation was the Security Agent for Eagle Bidco’s noteholders, not Mr Textor’s lender. He says his current account was not pledged or assigned to it, and that the release was executed by Ares as attorney under the intercreditor agreement.
- Clarification: the guarantees. The three guarantees were given by OL Groupe and OL SASU and signed by Mr Textor as their president. They are not personal guarantees.
- Clarification: the €96.9m. These are OL’s own liabilities for player rights it bought from Botafogo, which Botafogo then assigned to factors. They are not Botafogo’s debts.
- Clarification: the directors’ conduct report. The progress report makes no finding about any director. The cross-reference from that passage to my review of his memoranda has been reworded so that it does not imply one.
- Update: Bidco’s directors. The administrators’ Appendix I records Mr Textor as a serving director of Bidco: removed on 27 January 2026 and reappointed on 29 January 2026. The article now says so in the books-and-records passage.
- Update: the basis of the 0.82% Botafogo figure. Mr Textor points out that R$980,000 is exactly 49% of the R$2m share issue. The cost of Bidco’s entitlement was therefore calculated on the social club’s 49% footing, not on the 90% (90,000 Class B shares) the administrators record. His arithmetic is right, and the article now says so.
- Clarification: dates. The tripartite confidentiality undertaking with Ares-linked entities is dated 13 April 2026. EFG disclosed it on 14 April 2026.
The OL Groupe annual report review (27 October 2026)
- Clarification: the player transactions. Following the URD, the article said OL “sold the economic rights of four players” back to Botafogo. Mr Textor says there were four cession contracts in all. Three of them were sell-backs dated 19 May 2025: Igor Jesus (US$43,134,297), Jair (€20.9m) and Almada (€27.075m). The fourth concerned Luiz Henrique, whom Botafogo sold to Zenit in January 2025, with instalments passed back to OL. Savarino was bought separately for €7.6m and was never sold back.
- Update: how the release was executed. Mr Textor says the 26 June 2026 deed of release was executed by Ares “as agent and attorney” for each releasing creditor, including him. He says it relied on the intercreditor agreement’s power of attorney (clause 18.26) and its distressed-disposal clause (clause 12.1(b)). He accepts that Eagle Football Holdings LLC acceded to the intercreditor agreement for the loans on its books. Whether he acceded personally, or signed a subordination deed, he is still checking.
None of these points changes a headline finding, so none has been entered in the corrections log.
2. What Mr Textor now accepts
Mr Textor concedes several points, some of them against positions he had taken earlier. He accepts that:
- His claim that “the great bulk” of the €242.2m release was Botafogo money is wrong, and he withdraws it. On his own schedule, Botafogo advanced €146.9m gross and never had more than €53.4m outstanding at any one time. He now puts the Botafogo-derived part of the release at a floor of about €55m.
- His argument about asymmetric presentation does not hold. IFRS 9 and IAS 32 require gross presentation with one side impaired.
- Nothing in the sell-back contracts made a player’s signature a condition. The contracts were effective on execution, and the payment obligations were unconditional. He says the note on his own intercompany schedule that relied on the players’ signatures “overstates the position”. His case is now about performance, not formation.
- OL’s June 2025 submission to the DNCG treated the sell-backs as producing receivables due from Botafogo and built them into the cash plan.
- The accounts are the best evidence of what OL recorded. He does not accept that what OL recorded is correct.
- None of the three guarantees appeared as an off-balance-sheet commitment in the 2023/24 accounts, which were prepared while he was chairman. “If that was an omission it was an omission.”
- The administrators’ record of Bidco holding 99.5% of RWDM stands. He will restate his statement of 3 August 2026 on the 2023–24 capital increases.
3. Mr Textor’s case: “three moments”
Mr Textor asks that his argument that the assets were “stolen” be reported as he frames it: three events, each tied to documents. He says: “I ask only that the article report the three moments as I have set them out … rather than my choice of noun.” The three moments follow, as he puts them, each with my assessment.
Moment 1: the side letter of 7 July 2025. Mr Textor says the important parts of the letter are not the sale standstill. They are its governance terms. He says the letter:
- gave the incoming chair “full authority” over board-level and executive decisions;
- created an executive committee, including two lender representatives removable by Ares, whose consent was needed for the player-trading budget, for capital-structure transactions with any shareholder of or lender to Bidco, and for transactions with the chair’s own entities;
- required those consent rights to be written into the internal rules (règlement intérieur) of EFG and OL SASU;
- protected the chair from removal before 30 June 2027;
- released her from liabilities arising from her conduct of EFG;
- stated that it took precedence over Bidco’s shareholder and credit documents.
He says the letter was not approved by Eagle Football Holdings Limited, the ultimate parent, which was not a party. He says it was not shown to the Bidco and EFH boards that approved the July 2025 financing, and that OL’s board and public shareholders were not told. In his words: “Whether it was unlawful is for the courts; that it was done, and hidden, is in the document.”
My view: the letter exists. EFG confirmed it in a regulated release on 10 March 2026. That release also said the committee had never been consulted on or approved any operation or decision. I have not seen the executed letter and cannot confirm the terms Mr Textor describes. Whether it amounted to a transfer of control of a listed company is a question for the courts and the AMF. The omission of the letter from the 2025/26 URD is a point I have already rated as high severity.
Moment 2: from the letter to the cancelled debts. Mr Textor says the side letter (paragraph 11) required money from the chair’s notes to be lent by Bidco to EFG as short-term subordinated loans, and passed on to OL SASU. The US$102.4m loan of 7 July 2025, recorded in the URD as €97.4m, was money of that kind. Debts of that class could be released by the Security Agent once it had enforced over shares. His figures from Schedule 2 of the deed of release are:
| Debt released “as at 25 June 2026” | Owed by | € |
|---|---|---|
| Shareholder loans to Eagle Bidco (including the 7 July 2025 loan) | EFG | 127,435,013 |
| Cash pooling, Eagle Bidco | OL SASU | 55,098,273 |
| Eagle Football Holdings LLC loan | OL SASU | 8,486,558 |
| Eagle Football Holdings LLC loan | EFG | 33,275,241 |
| John Textor loan | OL SASU | 18,356,840 |
| Total | 242,651,925 |
Source: Mr Textor, citing the deed of release of 26 June 2026, which I have not seen.
He says OL booked the release as €242.2m of income, without which the reported loss of €87.3m would have been about €324m.
My view: his total is within €0.45m of the €242.2m in OL’s accounts, a gap he attributes to the measurement date. Four of his five lines agree with the URD composition set out in my 27 October review. The exception is the split of the Eagle LLC balances. His schedule puts €8.5m at OL SASU and €33.3m at EFG. My reading of the URD gives €34.4m at OL SASU and €7.6m at OL Groupe. I will check this against the URD and correct whichever reading is wrong. The circuit he describes from the side letter is his interpretation of a document I have not seen.
Moment 3: the trigger. Mr Textor says the lender’s notice of 22 January 2026 declared the notes payable on demand, and stated its purpose as mitigating the risk of a change to Bidco’s board. The notice said it was “not a demand for repayment”. On 23 January he proposed using Bidco’s 87.78% vote to put independent directors on OL’s board at the meeting of 28 January. He says the lender refused that slate. On the evening of 24 January he signed the parent’s notice removing Bidco’s two other directors. He says he had not then seen the side letter, which was produced the next day. On 27 January the parent, acting through Ares as Security Agent, removed him. He was reappointed on 29 January. The lender’s notices of 4 February and 27 March treated the removals as an acceleration event and an event of default. The administrators were appointed on 27 March, and the 26 June instruments rely on that notice. His conclusion: “If the side letter was lawful, the lender was an aggrieved creditor and I was a shareholder who defaulted. If it was not, everything taken on 26 June was taken without right. There is no third reading, and I say the first.”
My view: the dates fit the public record, but I have not seen the lender’s notices. The defaults first relied on in January (a Botafogo registration ban, late accounts and a November judgment) are not answered by his account of the board dispute. No court has set aside the appointment. My verdict in the 7 November article stands: the administration was planned, but that it was unlawful is unproven.
4. The price of the notes and the sale of Bidco
The note price. Mr Textor offers an estimate of what YMK Holdings paid for the notes, a figure the 7 November article said had not been disclosed. Ares Capital Corporation’s 10-Q shows that it transferred US$71.3m of note principal. It kept 2,550,171 units of Bidco common equity, at a cost of US$2.6m, and booked a realised loss of US$69m. Mr Textor says the 26 June transfer certificates show fourteen transferors holding US$466.9m of principal, allocated pro rata. If every transferor was treated as Ares Capital Corporation was, the lender group exchanged about US$467m of principal for Bidco equity carried at about US$17m, writing off about US$452m.
My view: the Ares Capital Corporation figures match the 10-Q I cited. The extrapolation to the other thirteen transferors is his, and it assumes they were all treated the same way, which only their own filings or the register could confirm. If it is right, the “price” of the notes was largely equity in what is left in Bidco rather than cash. That would answer the first of my questions for the administrators. It is an estimate, not a disclosure.
The £1 sale of Bidco. Mr Textor says that on 26 June 2026 the Security Agent enforced over Midco’s shares in Bidco and sold them for £1.00 to Stichting EFHG, a Dutch foundation (trade register 42088628), on a valuation dated 18 June. The progress report does not mention this, and I have not been able to verify it. If confirmed, it matters: the foundation’s register would show who now owns what remains in Bidco, including the Botafogo stake.
The release during the administration. Mr Textor argues that the release of Bidco’s receivables took place during the administration. Enforcing security over a company in administration needs the administrators’ consent or the court’s permission, and the report records neither. I made the related point in the 7 November article: an estate asset was given up by the Security Agent rather than realised by the administrators. I have added this question to those the administrators should answer.
5. Botafogo
Mr Textor says the Florida default judgment of 15 September 2026 is now final. As against Bidco, it determined the 90,000 Class B shares to be his. He says the social club’s move from 10% to 49% was a contractual remedy for a breach he disputes. The meeting of 24 September 2026 was convened on the 49% footing, six weeks after the English order of 12 August 2026 requiring the shares to be preserved. He cites that order only for preservation. He confirms that the administrators asked him to fund the R$980,000 subscription, in a chaser of 19 October 2026. He declined, because subscribing “would have accepted the dilution of shares I had just established were mine.”
My view: the 49% arithmetic is right and is now in the article. The Florida judgment binds Bidco in the United States. Title in Brazil needs recognition by Brazil’s Superior Court of Justice (STJ), as he accepts. I have not seen the 19 October chaser.
6. OL’s accounts and the Botafogo balances
The counterparty point. Mr Textor’s main remaining accounting argument is not about presentation. OL recognises the Botafogo relationship in one direction only. The cash Botafogo sent is recorded as owed to Eagle Bidco, not to Botafogo. Recorded that way, the Botafogo-derived part (his floor of about €55m) fell inside the release. Recorded as owed to Botafogo, it would not have, because Botafogo was not a party. He relies on OL’s own results release of 21 October 2026, which describes the release as covering debts owed “to Eagle Bidco, John Textor or Eagle Football Holdings LLC”. He says the undated cash-management agreement OL relies on has three signature blocks, all signed by him, and no block for Eagle Bidco or for Botafogo. A February 2025 agreement was, he says, executed by all eight parties, including Bidco and Botafogo.
My view: this is his strongest accounting point, and it is unresolved. OL’s own documents confirm the scope of the release: I corrected my June analysis on exactly this point. Which instrument governs the cash-pool balances decides who the creditor is. I have not seen either agreement. OL should be asked.
Performance of the sell-backs. Mr Textor says no International Transfer Certificate was requested for the three sell-backs and no registration moved back to Botafogo. He notes that Almada was registered at OL on loan in January 2025. He relies on a December 2024 memorandum to the DNCG, drafted by the executive who is now OL’s chief executive. It describes a two-step structure, a contractual transfer followed by registration, which the DNCG’s transfer ban prevented. He argues that OL owes on either reading: “If the sell-backs took effect, OL owned the … rights and cannot tell [the factors] that the purchases never took place … If they did not take effect, OL still owns the players and still owes the instalments.”
What OL told the DNCG. He says OL’s July 2025 appeal submission recorded OL as owing banks €111.3m at 30 June 2025 for receivables financed by Botafogo, with €38.2m in the 2025/26 cash plan.
My view: OL continues to recognise these liabilities. The URD carries €102.2m at 30 June 2025 and €96.9m at 30 June 2026, so on that his point and the accounts agree. I have not seen the DNCG submissions and cannot reconcile the €111.3m. One correction to his note: he says OL pursued Botafogo for €4.8m over Savarino. The URD describes OL’s FIFA claim as concerning the fee for Jeffinho.
The IAS 8 argument. Mr Textor argues that because 2024/25 was not restated, either the liabilities were never an error, and their removal must be explained, or they were an error and should have been restated. My view: this does not work. A liability released by its creditor is derecognised, and the difference goes to profit or loss under IFRS 9, which is what OL did. That is not a correction of an error, and IAS 8 does not apply. A real technical question remains: whether a release by the former parent group should be booked to equity as a capital contribution rather than as income. The auditors flagged the release as an emphasis of matter.
The guarantees. Mr Textor agrees that the board-authorisation requirement in Article L.225-35 applies to the OL Groupe guarantee for RWDM, and not to OL SASU, where he was sole president with authority to bind the company. He is checking the board minute for the August 2023 guarantee. This matches my analysis.
Who knew. Mr Textor disputes EFG’s description of “systematic opacity”. He says the December 2024 work on the transfer and cash-pooling model was circulated to OL’s then chief executive, finance director, legal and football staff and external French counsel, and was put to the DNCG and UEFA.
My view: if the distribution lists are as he says, they show the transfer and cash-pooling structure was known within OL. They do not show that the three guarantees were known, and that is what my “Contradicted” rating on that row concerns. The rating stands until a board minute or equivalent is produced.
7. Disclosure of the side letter
Mr Textor says Bidco’s then independent director entered into the side letter without telling him, although he was Bidco’s only other director. He says that director confirmed in writing on 14 January 2026 that the decision had been taken not to disclose it to him. He says the AMF wrote to EFG’s chief executive about the letter in late February 2026, before EFG’s partial disclosure of 10 March 2026. He argues that the letter bears on the chief executive’s terms of office and on the board’s internal rules, both of which a listed issuer must describe. I have not seen this correspondence. The URD’s silence on the letter is already item 19 in my register of irregular items.
8. Documents offered and outstanding
Mr Textor has offered, or says he is locating:
- the three sell-back contracts of 19 May 2025;
- an extract from the Bidco board meeting of 22 January 2026;
- page references to the DNCG submissions;
- the December 2024 DNCG memorandum and related correspondence;
- a redacted payment confirmation for the €25m of 5 June 2025, which he says shows Eagle Football Holdings Limited, not Eagle Football Holdings LLC, as the conduit;
- signature pages for the side letter and the committee’s terms of reference;
- the OL Groupe board minute for the RWDM guarantee;
- the cash-pooling resolution;
- confirmation of whether he personally acceded to the intercreditor agreement;
- his letter to the administrators on books and records.
Where these documents change a finding, I will update the relevant article and say so.
9. Where this leaves the analysis
The headline findings of both articles stand:
- the Lyon sale was a credit-bid recapitalisation;
- unsecured creditors receive nothing;
- the URD is damaging to Mr Textor on the accounts and more helpful to him on the conduct of the sale;
- no court has found the enforcement unlawful.
Mr Textor’s response does three things. It withdraws or narrows several of his own earlier claims. It strengthens two points in his favour: the conflict at the heart of the sale, which runs through the side letter, the note purchase and the credit bid, and the unexplained basis for releasing his personal current account. And it offers the first public estimate of what the lender group accepted for its notes.
His wider allegations about the motives of others remain allegations. They are before the courts in Lyon, New York, Florida and London. My analysis of the Florida filings is here and here.
Any response from other parties including (but not limited to) Olympique Lyonnais Groupe, Ares Management and Cork Gully LLP will be published.
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