Out of Crystal Palace and Lyon, but John Textor’s Eagle Football Group are watching RWDM speed walk towards bankruptcy | OneFootball

John Textor has had an interesting time of it in recent years. Despite success with Botafogo, his time involved in clubs like Lyon and Crystal Palace was hardly a recipe for success. Crystal Palace fans will be pleased that his involvement was minimal and didn’t impact the club as much as it could have. Fans of the Eagles just have to look across the channel to Belgium and what is going on in Brussels. As reported by Het Nieuwsblad, the situation for RWDM is dire.

The club were given a transfer ban over the winter and that has still not been lifted. Under Textor, the side spent and were able to earn promotion to the Pro League, a welcome return for one of the capitals more well known sides. However, since then, and even while that success was happening on the pitch, off the pitch things were going south. Fans were unhappy with how Textor had muscled his way into being the clubs President, and relegation to the second tier just compounded the frustration.

Now, two years after relegation, the side are facing the prospect of bankruptcy. The club have just been given another points deduction, their second of the week, due to non-payments of various kinds. With decisions being made about who will receive a licence for next season set for a few weeks time, RWDM are in real danger of not being given the licence to play in the second tier next season. Textor has since stepped down from his position at the club, but that hasn’t helped solve the current crisis.

As HNB reports, ‘majority shareholder Eagle Football Holdings Bidco can no longer guarantee the club’s continued existence’. Why? Because Eagle Football Holdings Bidco and Eagle Football Group have the same UBO (Ultimate Beneficial Owner). Within the complexities, only one solution is viable. RWDM and the Eagle Group have to find anothe rorganisaiton that is willing to provide the money that will satisfy the licencing committee that RWDM will be able to function as a football club next season. The catch is, they have to do so by the 16th of March. As HNB suggests, the chances of this happening are ‘non-existent’. The recently published annual accounts show that RWDM already suffered a loss of €14.5m last season. The year before, it was €25.2m. Clearly such losses are unsustainable.

One of the main problems the side has faced is that Lyon have pulled financial support for the club. Like RFC Seraing experienced when Metz did the same, the situation highlights how fallible a club can be if it is reliant on the interest of another big side. Cercle Brugge and Monaco have shown how it can work for both sides, but even Cercle Brugge fans must be worried about what would happen if the Ligue 1 side suddenly lost interest in what happens in Brugge. At the moment, that doesn’t seem to be a real possibility, but Seraing and RWDM act as a warning for Cercle fans.

Hopefully a solution will be found to keep RWDM in the league and functioning. However, the situation is very bleak at the moment.

GBeNeFN | Ben Jackson