How to make money in football

John Textor, the man fronting the €800mn takeover of French football club Olympique Lyonnais, is betting he can solve football’s money problem. “Unfortunately, football is very much about money,” Textor told journalists this week.

With a background in technology, Textor thinks football clubs can generate revenues from new sources aside from ticket and merchandise sales, broadcast deals and sponsorships.

But it is his network of clubs — he controls Belgian side RWD Molenbeek, Brazil’s Botafogo, and a 40 per cent share of Crystal Palace — that could be critical to finding an edge.

While he’s visited Palace’s first-team training facilities a handful of times, Textor says he’s been to the youth academy on 50 separate occasions.

“That really tells you what my interests are, I love the youth development side of the sport,” he said. “What I like about Eagle Football and our strategy is that we are attempting to create a family of highly collaborative top-tier clubs that work together in identifying and developing a global footprint of talent.”

Lyon has generated more than €270mn in transfer fees from selling players trained at the club since July 2015, according to CIES Football Observatory. A profitable youth academy explains Lyon’s knack for playing the transfer market, where deep-pocketed rivals overpay for top talent.

Lyon has earned roughly €686mn from selling players since summer 2012 versus an outlay of €439mn in the same period, second place across Europe’s big five leagues.

The solution to the sport’s money problem?

“It is what it is: we have to bring more capital to the equation,” said Textor. “But if we can find 11 players in this world that are better than those you can buy, we can beat you.”