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A32 sports
Diaranson 22 Juni 2022

New American owner at Lyon aims to spend

and chase down PSG

(AP) – American inves- Lyon last won the French ti- superstar forwards Lionel
tor John Textor became tle in 2008 and has struggled Messi, Kylian Mbappé and
the main shareholder of to compete as PSG spent lav- Neymar.
French soccer club Lyon ishly to win Ligue 1 in eight "I don't like these models
on Tuesday and immedi- of the past 10 seasons. like PSG," Textor said at a
ately targeted the domi- Textor's new club placed news conference in Lyon.
nance of Qatar-funded eighth in the season just "Great team, whatever, great
rival Paris Saint-Germain. ended, 25 points behind a athletes, we all love to watch
state-backed PSG team with them.
"I think over the few years
we want to go after them. We
want to win titles here. We
are going to show up and we
are going to spend," he said.

Player transfer spending was
promised in a capital injec-
tion of 86 million euros ($90
million) as part of Lyon's deal
with Textor's Eagle Football
Holdings that valued the club
at around 800 million euros
($840 million). The club
owns its 59,000-seat stadium
that hosted the 2019 Wom-
en's World Cup final and the
women's team has been Eu-
ropean champion six of the
last seven seasons.

The Lyon men's team has
never won the Champions
League though was twice a
semifinalist, including a 2020
loss to Bayern Munich which
then beat PSG in the final.
Lyon joins Brazilian club
Botafogo, Crystal Palace of
the English Premier League
and Molenbeek in Belgium
in Textor's international soc-
cer portfolio.
Community-driven clubs
who can share knowledge
and identify talent worldwide
was the common theme, the
technology entrepreneur
said.

Textor said Lyon's finances
were "on a really sound foot-
ing" and pointed to its reve-
nue-earning potential from
expertise in sports, entertain-
ment and technology.

"We can have as much capital
at play in our football club as
the Emir of Qatar," he said.
Textor jointly held the news
conference with Lyon presi-
dent Jean-Michel Aulas who
has run the club for 35 years
and plans to stay on for three
more.
"We will be even more ambi-
tious with John on our side,"
said Aulas, adding his new
business partner "ticks all the
boxes."
Both aimed further jibes at
the influence on modern Eu-
ropean soccer clubs of big-
spending oligarchs and sov-
ereign funds.