John Textor, founder and chairman of Eagle Football Holdings, the group behind Crystal Palace, Lyon, RWD Molenbeek, FC Florida, and Botafogo, took to the stage today at the Financial Times Football Business Summit to give a key note interview.
This season, both Everton and Nottingham Forest have been found to breach the Premier League's profit and sustainability rules, resulting in a six-point deduction for Everton, with further punishment expected.
But billionaire John Textor openly criticised these rules, drawing on events at his own club to attack the regulations.
Textor, who has a widely publicised tense relationship with Crystal Palace chairman Steve Parish, presented a rather united front between him and Parish in this intriguing interview, bestowing a lot of praise upon the Palace chair.
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'Fair play is a fraud of a term'
Textor, who co-owns Crystal Palace with numerous partners, including fellow American billionaires Josh Harris and David Blitzer, denounced the Premier League's financial rules.
The American billionaire explained that he believes the rules are there to protect the elite clubs at the very top of the Premiership from increased competition.
“It’s clear that they’re built to make sure that clubs who do not drive significant revenues cannot catch up.
"It doesn’t matter if you have a billion dollars of cash in a wheelbarrow; you’re not allowed to spend it. Does that make any sense?"
Textor continued by standing with Nottingham Forest, going so far as to say that the expected point deduction is not justified.
"Marinakis has plenty of money to fund his team, but he’s not allowed to. If he spends too much and does what the fans want, somebody comes along and docks him points. That’s not right."
Textor continued to criticise the league's financial rules, explaining his perspective that the league's rules should not be based on profit and loss but instead on the money in the bank.
“Financial Fair Play is a fraud of a term to say it’s about sustainability. The sustainability issue is a fraudulent issue. Sustainability should be about the quality of your balance sheet, not ratios against your profit and loss. Nobody actually thinks that makes sense.
"If you have a billion pounds of cash and you’re sustainable—more sustainable than most clubs in the league—you're not allowed to spend this. Everybody should be saying this; it doesn’t make sense."
Textor drew upon his time at Palace, explaining his frustration with the inability to spend large amounts of money due to being fearful of breaching financial regulations.
"We have got three billionaires in our ownership group, maybe more. We’re not allowed to spend at the level of teams that are in the top six. Josh Harris has no trouble with money; he just bought an NFL team and owns the 76ers. But Parish is not allowed to go out and spend that kind of money; he gets docked points and sent to the second division.
"I’m just saying you cannot have a rule that says somebody who has the money is not allowed to spend it because their club isn’t big enough. Yet how do you get big ever?”
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Praise for Parish
Despite widely publicised reports, John Textor explained that he is more than happy with Steve Parish running the day-to-day aspects of Crystal Palace Football Club, giving a fascinating insight into the pair's relationship.
"We’re at 45% (ownership) with Eagle (Football Holdings) at Palace. Steve Parish runs the club. I chose that. I developed a love for Palace, watching games, having beers with fans, but I don't have to make tough decisions.
"Steve (Parish) and I have probably disagreed on two players in two years. Having one leader that goes out and implements based on his judgement, that actually works at Palace.
"Every now and then you come into a meeting and you forget that you're not the majority guy and you say, 'well I would have done it differently'.
"Well isn't that football? Don't we all think we would have done it differently? It doesn't mean there's tension on the board."
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PSR causing frustration at the Palace
Textor admitted that Palace have been unfortunate with injuries this season, and Premier League-mandated budget restraints have meant that they haven't quite performed how they would have liked. He explained this by sharing that it is impractical to have a deep squad with the current profit and sustainability regulations.
"Fans, when they get frustrated, think things aren’t working now. But fans, please, believe your eyes. Good team, financial sustainability constraints based on the rules, and you roll out a great team this year, and Olise, Eze and Doucoure suddenly get injured."
The Eagle Football Holdings chief explained that it is impossible to have players of star quality sitting on the bench ready to come in when players fall to injury in the current PSR climate.
"You don’t have an Olise sitting on the bench because you don’t have that kind of capital under FFP. So some people assume it must be the chairman, it must be the coach. No, believe your eyes."
"I’ve got to somehow find a way to put Crystal Palace against Erling Haaland, and if you have an injury Palace, you don’t get to pull a £15 million player off the bench, you’ve got to take someone from your academy, because you can’t afford to have that (£15 million) player on your bench.
"That is not sport. Is anyone really having fun with this? It’s broken."