In a lawsuit brimming with international intrigue, failed merger ambitions, and high-stakes sports finance, John Textor, CEO of Eagle Football Holdings Ltd., has filed suit in federal court alleging he was misled into a complex financing agreement that ultimately derailed a plan to take his soccer empire public through a SPAC merger.
Textor’s complaint, filed Friday in Florida federal court, accuses James G. Dinan, billionaire hedge fund CEO and Milwaukee Bucks part-owner, Alexander Knaster, the head of Pamplona Capital Management, and Iconic Sports Eagle Investment LLC of misrepresenting their ability to take Eagle public through their blank-check company, Iconic Sports Acquisition Corp.
The Alleged SPAC Setup: Promises, Sanctions, and a $75 Million Clause
According to the suit, the deal’s trapdoor was a put option agreement, signed in November 2022, which allowed the financiers to force Textor to buy back their shares in Eagle for over $75 million plus 11% interest—if the planned de-SPAC merger fell through. Textor now claims he never would have agreed to such terms had he known that Knaster was connected to sanctioned Russian individuals, making the SPAC financing “practically impossible.”
