John Textor makes £400m takeover bid amid Sheffield Wednesday links | OneFootball

John Textor has been linked with Sheffield Wednesday for months, but it's now being reported that he's made a bid for a Premier League club instead.

American investor John Textor, who has been linked with a possible buyout of Sheffield Wednesday for months, is reported to have made a bid for a Premier League club.

It was party time at Hillsborough on Saturday, with a season-high crowd of over 27,000 turning out to mark the end of Dejphon Chansiri's time at Sheffield Wednesday. The club's new administrators had called on fans to pack the ground out, and 9,000 extra tickets for the match were sold in the 24 hours beforehand.

But the question of where the club's travails end up remains unanswerable. In administration, the club will be sold along with Hillsborough, with a Company Voluntary Arrangement in place to clear their unsecured debts. Administration was sought after a winding-up petition was issued against the club by HMRC, and entering administration halts all pending litigation against them.

While the identity of the new owners of the club remains unknowable, one name which has been consistently linked with Sheffield Wednesday this year has been the American investor John Textor. Textor sold his shareholding in Crystal Palace during the summer and has been understood to be looking for another English club to add to his international portfolio of clubs since then.

John Textor has made a £400 million bid for Wolverhampton Wanderers

But it has been reported this morning that Textor's attention has moved elsewhere. Writing for The Athletic this morning, journalist Matt Slater reports that Textor has made a formal bid of £400 million to buy Premier League club Wolverhampton Wanderers.

Slater reports that Textor "has made an offer of $200million in cash and $350million in shares in a rebooted version of his multi-club group to Wolverhampton Wanderers’ owner Fosun Group, the Chinese conglomerate that has owned Wolves since 2016."

He also explains many of the complexities relating to Textor's Eagle Football Holdings group, which already includes the Brazilian giants Botafogo, the Belgian club RWD Molenbeek and the French club Olympique Lyonnais, and the numerous legal battles that are going on regarding those clubs.

Slater also adds that, "if Textor is going to buy an English club again, it is more likely to be a Championship side ... as they are cheaper and more suited to his multi-club approach", and mentions that he may also have an interest in Championship clubs other than Sheffield Wednesday, including Charlton Athletic, Queens Park Rangers, Derby County and Watford.

Textor's Wolves bid demonstrates the financial gap between the Premier League and the EFL

Sheffield Wednesday's turn into administration will lead to the sale of the club, and there will be buyers with an interest. Anyone stepping in at Hillsborough would be buying a club with huge potential, the biggest stadium in the entire EFL (albeit one that requires a substantial amount of renovation) and almost 160 years of history.

And it is clear that Matt Slater has doubts concerning the seriousness of Textor's bid for Wolves. He states that this is "not just another news story — like an iceberg or a swan, there is a lot going on below the surface."

But it's clear that, despite his ongoing legal fights, Textor wants to add another English club to his portfolio, and the size of his bid for Wolves demonstrates how much a Premier League position affects the value of a club. Wolves are currently bottom of the Premier League with just two points from their first nine matches of the season. Relegation isn't a certainty, but there have been few signs at Molineux this season that they won't end the season by falling back into the Championship.

Yet a £400 million bid for Wolves is many times what will be required to buy Sheffield Wednesday. There was considerable criticism of Dejphon Chansiri's £100 million valuation of them, but even that amount is just a quarter of what Textor is reportedly prepared to pay for Wolves.

Below the hood, though, that gap narrows. Wolves have a Premier League place - for now - and even in the event of relegation would be guaranteed a minimum of three years' worth of parachute payments, while Sheffield Wednesday's broadcasting revenue for 2025-26 won't rise much above around £12 million. Molineux is a modern, Premier League-ready stadium, while Hillsborough requires considerable money to be spent on it.

But Textor's links to Wolves serve as a reminder that the landscape with regard to the buying and selling of football clubs can change very quickly, and given the legal battles that Textor is fighting with regard to Eagle Football Holdings at present, Wednesday fans may even breathe a sigh of relief if his attention is focused elsewhere at the moment.