John Textor’s tenure at Olympique Lyonnais only started recently, but it has been a bumpy ride so far, with the club recently sanctioned by the French football financial watchdog, the DNCG. As head of Eagle Football, Textor is also the owner of Belgian club Molenbeek, who recently got promoted to the Belgian Pro League. However, things are not all running smoothly there either.
In reality, Textor’s hands on approach isn’t being received very well. While he has enjoyed some success at Botafogo, the choice to fire the whole of the Molenbeek’s staff 5 days before the 2023/24 campaign began has not gone down very well.
A goalkeeping coach at Molenbeek since 2019, Thierry Berghmans was amongst those who were set aside by the American owner. He spoke to La DH Les Sports, a Belgian newspaper, to express his concerns and his disapproval of the management by Textor.
“We were really surprised by the timing (of the sackings), it is really ridiculous only 5 days before the start of a new season,” explains Berghmans. “If you want to change staff, do it right at the start of the pre-season. Taking a step back, I think he (Textor) believed we would be crushed by Lyon and that would have been a good excuse to fire us,” he adds. The Belgian side won 1-0 in their friendly against Lyon last month.
When reflecting on the overall management by Textor of the club, while Molenbeek did get promoted, Berghmans underlines the difficult circumstances which the staff and the players were working in: “I cannot count the number of times he put pressure on us, making the threat of breaking certain players’ contracts if we did not play certain players. We had prepared the promotion to the first division perfectly (…) and in two months, he destroyed what we had built in 8 years,” concludes Berghmans.
The supporters of the club have also turned on the owner. According to La DH Les Sports, the MCF ultras group, a core element of the Molenbeek fanbase, stated back in May that they will interrupt all the games until they see the return of the former president Thierry Dailly. They are even calling for the boycott of the upcoming season, attempting to send a real message to Textor in the process.
Pitch-side, the Belgian club start the season with Claudio Caçapa as head coach, notably a former Lyon centre back and until recently, the assistant coach of Laurent Blanc on the touchline for Les Gones. The Brazilian went to finish his coaching badges in Brazil, taking over the head coach role at Textor-owned team Botafogo on an interim basis for three weeks, securing 4 wins in the process.
