JOHN TEXTOR is in talks to sell his Crystal Palace stake for £230million.
A global sports investment group are understood to have made an offer for his 45 per cent stake.
The offer would value the Selhurst Park club at £500million.
Textor, 59, had instructed merchant bank Raine Group to identify interested parties for his stake at the South London club.
And Sportsbank are one of three serious bidders for Textor’s shares.
The group are made up of a collection of investors from North America, Canada, Europe and the Persian Gulf.
On Companies House, persons with significant control of Sportsbank are listed as Zechariah Janjua and Navshir Jaffer – who are actually Palace fans.
But although Sportsbank are the leading contenders, they are one of three serious interested parties.
Textor’s Eagle Football Group made one final bid to take over Palace in full in August, but they did not receive a response.
But his relationship with co-owner Steve Parish has become seriously fractured, with fans calling for him to leave the club.
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It remains to be seen whether Palace’s other three general partners — chairman Parish and fellow U.S. businessmen Josh Harris and David Blitzer – are prepared to sell their own stakes.
Harris and Blitzer, who are both 18 per cent shareholders, could in theory decide to match Sportsbank’s bid but have no automatic right to.
The ownership has a general partnership structure where different investors run the business together.
Eagle Football Group also own other clubs around the world, including French side Lyon, Brazilian league competitors Botafogo, Belgian club RWD Molenbeek and FC Florida in the U.S.
Textor first announced his plans to sell his stake in Crystal Palace and an interest in buying Everton in May.
But that fell through and The Friedkin Group reached an agreement in principle to buy Farhad Moshiri’s majority 94 per cent stake at Goodison Park.
The 58-year-old digital entrepreneur made his name in virtual reality studios and the streaming platform FuboTV.
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