"John Textor's headlong rush has led Olympique Lyonnais into a dead end."

Dating Olympique Lyonnais' (OL) collapse to the final moments of their Europa League quarter-final against Manchester United—the moment of an elimination as improbable as it was cruel—would be to misjudge the timeline. That April 17th did, indeed, mark the beginning of a run of four defeats in five matches, including the derby against Saint-Etienne (April 20th) and the one against Monaco on Saturday, May 10th. Barring a highly unlikely turnaround on the final matchday of Ligue 1, Saturday, May 17th, OL will not be competing in the Champions League next season.

This qualification for European competition was, however, essential to hope to salvage a situation that had been compromised for much longer, as this sixth season finished outside the Ligue 1 podium since 2018-2019 is a reminder. Compromised, therefore, well before the sale of the club to the American billionaire John Textor, in 2022, in case we want to see this as the real turning point.

The company's valuation of €800 million certainly seemed to crown the thirty-seven years of the reign of its president-owner Jean-Michel Aulas. OL was nonetheless already weakened by its debt and increasingly poor sporting governance. John Textor did not squander the legacy so much as substitute a risky model for an obsolete one .

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