PRESS RELEASE: EFG Financials

May 13, 2026

Eagle Football Holdings

Statement Regarding EFG Financials

Eagle Football Holdings Limited (“EFH”), the ultimate majority shareholder of Eagle Football Holdings Bidco (“Bidco”), considers it necessary to issue the following clarifications in response to the highly misleading press release published by Eagle Football Group SA (“EFG”) (Olympique Lyonnais) on 12 May 2026, on results for the first half of the 2025/26 financial year.

A criminal complaint has been recently filed against management of EFG on charges of private corruption, abuse of corporate powers, presentation of inaccurate accounts and dissemination of false or misleading information. On April 22, 2026, EFH provided formal notice of such criminal complaint to the board of EFG. On April 24, 2026, in light of certain undisputed facts, publicly acknowledged by the board of EFG, EFH formally called for the termination of Ms. Kang, as President of EFG.

The criminal complaint denounces a system, established in particular through a shadow committee whose existence was acknowledged by EFG on 10 March 2026, designed and working in predatory fashion to force the bankruptcy of majority shareholder Bidco, thereby enabling bondholders, including Ares Capital and Ms. Kang (current CEO of EFG), to take-over control and ownership of the company. The scheme has now reached its climax as Ms. Kang and Ares should shortly submit a bid to acquire the company, through a process which was designed to be sure they would be successful.

Unfortunately, the take-over attempt of Ms. Kang, currently underway, looks eerily similar to the strategy by which she acquired her first football club.

With the Washington Spirit, others allege Ms. Kang successfully executed a strategy, which was then referred to as a ‘coup d’etat’, with claims of back-door dealing, publicly announced internal investigations, and a highly personalized smear campaign to impugn the integrity of the Spirit’s respected majority owner, to take-over full control of her first football club.

With Olympique Lyonnais, her take-over playbook appears to be the same with the July 7, 2025 creation of a ‘shadow board’ that would secretly have veto-control of all operating decisions, and the leaking of a planned internal investigation of the majority owner, followed by a relentless smear campaign to erase the sporting and financial accomplishments of prior management, repeatedly misleading the public to believe that cost reductions and financial controls which were executed and DNCG-reported under prior management were only achieved by new management, while commissioning professional media consultants to push themes of 'financial irregularities', ‘phantom transfers’ and ‘recently discovered’ transactions.

With full knowledge of the recently filed criminal complaint, the board of directors of EFG still chose to approve and publish the aforementioned press release which is replete with material errors relating to transactions that current management has long known required re-statement.

Consistent with past practice, the release is little more than a marketing piece designed to applaud the current management team for the ‘good news’ of a dramatic cost and wage-scale reduction program that was completed in June 2025 (and presented to the DNCG) under the direction of prior management, while the ‘bad news’ of heavy losses is alleged to be attributable to large write-offs of intercompany receivables, which were fabricated by current management and should have never have been recorded in the first place. Once again, even with the pendency of a criminal complaint that details wrongful accounting practices, EFG has published financial reports that are, at the least, misleading.

More disturbing is that the board of EFG has now decided to embrace Ms. Kang’s historically successful and dishonest smear tactics, including in the Press Release an entire section of “Off Balance Sheet Items”, falsely alleging that the Group only just discovered corporate guarantees relating to factoring transactions that provided no benefit to EFG/OL, and that Mr. Textor would have entered into such transactions unilaterally without disclosure to the Group.

- An internal email addressed to "Dear Laurent, Dear Everyone" clearly shows that the oft-maligned system of “phantom transfers”, “cash through factoring”, and “cash pooling” was NOT a secret Textor plan that was shielded from transparency within the Group, but was fully embraced by the entire management team of EFG/OL as an attractive system of multi-club collaboration, which helped Eagle Football clubs to rapidly rise from lower divisions and relegation threats to historic levels of success.

- Also important to note, though ‘current management’ now has pointed the finger at Mr. Textor, a December 2024 memo authored by Mr. Gerlinger, current CEO of EFG/OL, makes clear that the player transfer and cash factoring model of the Eagle Group was partly designed, fully embraced and fiercely defended Mr. Gerlinger himself, one Europe’s foremost experts on the business and law of football. Contrary to the current allegations that Textor did not share critical information with EFG, Mr. Gerlinger’s memos and emails make it very clear that Mr. Textor was reliant on his advice, and that entire management team of EFG/OL was involved in, and aware of, such transactions.

- We are also compelled (again) to challenge the misleading suggestion that EFG, under prior leadership, financed player transfers that did not happen. EFG's CEO Mr. Gerlinger clearly argued the opposite stance in the above-described memo, defending these Fall 2024 player transfers as valid, FIFA compliant transfer arrangements which gave Eagle Football a huge recruiting advantage for the benefit of its clubs.

In the case of Luiz Henrique, voted South America's top player, he was originally signed to a player migration concept, uniquely by both clubs, in January 2024, first committing to play for Botafogo, ultimately signing with Olympique Lyonnais and committing to come to Lyon at season's end in Brazil (mid-year for OL).

Eagle Group football executives continued to capitalize on this unique multi-club advantage as transfer agreements were executed, signing fees and agent fees were paid, and some of Brazil's strongest players (Igor Jesus, Luiz Henrique, Jair Cunha and Thiago Almada) were cleverly recruited for the benefit of both Botafogo and Olympique Lyonnais.

The players were excited to come to Lyon and build upon the club's impressive sporting turn-around. If not for an unprecedented retro-active transfer ban, imposed by the DNCG, these athletes would have arrived in training in January, adding to an already potent squad, and Olympique Lyonnais could very well have qualified for Champions League by the end of the 2024/25 season.

- Finally, it should be clear to all that EFG/OL benefited handsomely from these transactions as, just as Mr. Gerlinger's memo explained, as the vast majority of proceeds from the related factoring transactions would, pursuant the 'cash pooling agreement' and inter-company loan arrangements, be transferred to OL SASU. Only after enjoying the proceeds of such transactions, does EFG/OL look to disavow the transactions, choosing to breach the agreements, incurring even more penalties and harming OL, as Ms. Kang's conflict of interest is laid bare for all to see. What she chooses that OL should not to pay, however valid such payables may be, she saves Euro-for-Euro that same amount, personally, as her well publicized DNCG-imposed standby letter of credit is not drawn.

The following accounting and financial facts were well known to the EFG board at the time of publication and demonstrate clearly that the 2024/25 financial statements were materially inaccurate and knowingly misleading.

First, the overwhelming majority of the substantial expense reductions achieved had already been implemented by 30 June 2025 (see full explanation). The November 2025 DNCG submission and the financial statements as of 31 December 2025 reflect no material changes when compared with the June 2025 DNCG submission.

Second, the 2024/25 annual report contained a number of material errors and misstatements that were known to the board and management prior to publication and are now detailed in the criminal complaint, including:

a. the recording of a €126.2 million receivable from SAF Botafogo that simply does not exist;

b. the wrongful assertion that Eagle Bidco had agreed to accept responsibility for the (fabricated) €126.2 receivable;

c. the wrongful reassignment of OL payables to SAF Botafogo, wrongfully reported as payables to Eagle Bidco that would be forgiven by Ares as a part of the alleged takeover plan of a shadow board;

d. the unilateral reassignment of costs from OL to Eagle Football Holdings, for the purpose of improving reported profitability; and

e. the reassignment of material transactions to incorrect Eagle entities for strategic purposes.

The appropriate course of action for EFG’s statutory auditors during the 2024/25 financial year would have been to seek independent third-party confirmation of material payables and receivables and to investigate the obvious discrepancies arising from those balances before permitting the publication of financial statements that EFH believes were prepared and filed for improper purposes.

Having failed to undertake such third-party confirmation procedures in the prior year, particularly in relation to significant related-party transactions, the statutory auditors have now, in EFH’s view, failed once again by permitting EFG to obscure the underlying reporting issues through the subsequent classification of those same amounts as uncollectible.

EFG management was also warned repeatedly by Eagle Group finance professionals and Ares-appointed independent directors that the accounting treatment adopted in the 2024/25 financial statements was materially incorrect. Nevertheless, EFG proceeded to publish those financial statements in order to maintain compliance with DNCG-imposed deadlines.

In light of these circumstances, and as EFG enters the 2025/26 financial year, the appropriate course of action for the EFG board would have been to consider a restatement of the affected financial statements.

Instead, EFG has chosen to compound the prior misrepresentation by writing off substantial sums that should never have been recorded in the first place. For instance, the impairment of receivables that were wrongfully recorded in prior financial statements is being presented as the consequence of ordinary commercial circumstances in an apparent attempt to conceal prior errors.

The year-end 2025 financial statements now appear designed to conceal prior misstatements and support a litigation strategy aimed at avoiding payment obligations owed to financial institutions holding valid receivables. These are the same institutions that, in the July DNCG appeal projections, were budgeted to be repaid through Kang credit enhancement.

The financial press release dated 31 December 2025 contains additional material misstatements, including:

1. Statement: “Furthermore, the Group has discovered that third parties are invoking guarantees allegedly granted by the Company or its subsidiary OL SASU, signed by former CEO John Textor, to cover obligations undertaken by the clubs Botafogo and Molenbeek (owned by Eagle Bidco and linked to John Textor) that were not known to the Group (see section “off-balance sheet commitments” below)."

a. Ignoring the highly inappropriate and repeating use of financial press releases in furtherance of a smear campaign, the assertion that certain transactions and guarantees were only recently discovered by the “Group”, is entirely false.

b. Prior management (led by OL’s current CEO) presided over all such transactions openly and on behalf of, and for the benefit of, the Group. The suggestion that such transactions were not known to the Group is patently false, and is yet another deception on the public market:

i. In an email dated December 23, 2024, Mr. Mickael Gerlinger, Head of Eagle Football (and current CEO of OL) addressed the entire leadership staff at EFG/OL, including the CEO, CFO, and in-house counsel, making it clear that he defended the transactions and had written a formal memo asserting the same;;

ii. In the email, Gerlinger states, “On the group transfers, I made the memo, which explains that those transfers are perfectly in line with the FIFA law and create cash.”

iii. Reprehensibly, since the summer of 2025, Ms. Kang has inspired a smear campaign, and Mr. Gerlinger has stood silent to watch, as Mr. Textor would be publicly attacked for unilaterally executing on a series player transactions that were leaked to the press as “phantom transfers” and “financial irregularities”, as if Mr. Textor executed such transactions on his own, without the support of learned advisors and lawyers.

iv. Even today, the board of EFG has endorsed the continued use of a financial press release in furtherance of a smear campaign, as the current CEO, who once defended such transactions as appropriate maintains that they were never disclosed to the Group;

v. So the formal position of EFG/OL has changed, simply because OL wants neither to honor its intercompany obligations to SAF Botafogo, nor repay the financial institutions that helped to fund OL.

c. The repeated suggestion of “recent discovery” has been used by current management as a basis to deny responsibility for material and legitimate transactions. Had current management not deliberately separated itself from the Group’s majority ownership and its multi-club partners within Eagle Football as part of an improper takeover strategy, there would have been continuity of knowledge regarding these transactions, accurate accounting treatment, and no basis for such claims. The mere fact that Group staff has changed does invalidate legal and binding obligations, nor does it reverse the benefits of the transactions themselves.;

d. The statement appears to refer to corporate guarantees of payments related to the successful signings of Ernest Nuamah and Luiz Henrique. In the case of Mr. Nuamah, who remains an asset to the roster at OL, current management of OL continues to shield valid liabilities from its governing bodies by absurdly asserting that RWDM should pay for performance-related bonuses attributable to Mr. Nuamah’s success at OL. Such performance bonuses, and other expenses, were clearly and appropriately guaranteed by OL.

e. In the case of Mr. Henrique’s, whose economic rights were validly transferred to OL, prior to the DNCG imposing a retroactive transfer, his federative rights were ultimately sold to Zenit, at an attractive profit to OL, which was appropriately credited to OL.

f. The company’s material error, in not reporting such amounts earlier, is entirely attributable to Ms.Kang’s take-over inspired decision to prohibit and intimidate communication between current (and newly assigned) staff of the Group, and the staff, advisors and attorneys previously responsible for material transactions across the Group. In response to countless attempts of communication between the staff of EFG and its Eagle Football counterparts, to assure the accuracy of the Group’s financial reporting, EFG employees simply stated that they were instructed by Ms. Kang not to maintain communication.

2. “The implementation of the cost-cutting plan, announced last summer by the new Management, has resulted in a sharp fall in purchase and external costs, as well as staff costs, generating a very significant improvement in EBITDA of €44.0 million compared with 31 December 2024. EBITDA is thus approaching break-even for the first time since 31 December 2023 (a semester that benefited from a particularly high amount of player transfers) and stands at -€2.2 million as at 31 December 2025, compared with -€46.1 million in the previous year.”

a. This paragraph is highly deceptive, intending to promote new management with a falsehood, while advancing a comparative smear against prior management. If new Management did, in fact, announce cost reductions, such reductions were already fully executed by prior management. It has previously been made clear through actual DNCG submissions, as previously posted on this website, that such wage cost reductions, necessary to achieve EBITDA break-even, were delivered before June 30, 2025. The same football department of prior management, which remains in place today, is to be commended for delivering to its DNCG meeting on June 24, 2025, a break-even run rate of EBITDA, prior to commencement of the current season and fiscal year. Again, today’s press release shows no material changes to the wage scale, since June 30, 2025.

b. The point of this retort is not to compare the successes and shortcomings of different management teams, but rather to highlight the company’s consistent practice to issue deceptive statements through financial reporting press releases that are required to be entirely factual.

3. The operating result stood at -€163.7 million as at 31 December 2025 (-€90.5 million in the previous year). This result takes into account significant write-downs of receivables from related parties (Eagle Bidco and Botafogo SAF), in relation to the default risk identified with regard these counterparties (for a total amount of € 126.2 million; see details in paragraph 2). Excluding these write-downs (purely accounting transactions, the relevance of which will be re-assessed at the next financial statement), operating profit would amount to - €37.5 million, an improvement of €52.9 million compared with 31 December 2024, benefiting from a sharp decline in other depreciation, amortization and provisions (particularly relating to players, following the implementation of the cost-cutting strategy).

a. The continuing reference to a €126.2 receivable from SAF Botafogo is materially and knowingly false. The amount is entirely fabricated, first being reported in the Annual Report for the year-ended June 30, 2024, after management was warned by independent directors of Eagle Football Bidco, and prior management of EFG, that the amount related to player transfers that were proposed and never fully consummated. Moreover, as such ‘sell-back’ transactions were never consummated, and never approved by the athletes themselves, EFG/OL retained the economic rights to the athletes and was fully credited for the cash amounts received by SAF Botafogo when the athletes were ultimately sold to other football clubs.

b. With full knowledge that such receivables were not valid, EFG management compounded the error of over-stated receivables by fraudulently reporting, in its 2025 annual report, that Eagle Bidco had agreed to assume the alleged liability owed by SAF Botafogo, and credit EFG/OL, though the board of Eagle Bidco made clear to management of EFG, in advance of the publications of the annual report that no such agreement to cover fabricated receivables had ever been discussed or contemplated.

c. Moreover, while the cash flows, as documented today and as approved by independent experts, show that Botafogo transferred €146 million to the OL SASU, which then reimbursed only €42 million, resulting in a net balance of approximately €104 million in favor of Botafogo, the accounts presented by EFG do not mention this significant debt, with regard to the Brazilian club.

i. To wit, SAF Botafogo has recently secured a judgment in court, in Brazil, requiring OL SASU to repay a significant sum (more than €20 million) of the amounts owed, with the court’s consideration on the balance of such amounts set for consideration on a subsequent date.

ii. For its part, OL has decided not to admit knowledge of SAF Botafogo’s successful court ruling, which was widely reported in the press, and is well know to OL’s legal representatives in Brazil, stating only, “Furthermore, Botafogo is reported to have initiated proceedings against OL before the Rio de Janeiro Court, but the Group has received no notification in this regard. No provision has been recognized in the accounts as at 31 December 2025. Current management is obviously aware of this development and has chosen not to disclose this material event to the public.

d. Now comes EFG management once again, reporting on the same receivable, and rather than disclose the prior error, and re-state prior financials, the company has chosen to write-off the fabricated receivable based on a vague ‘technical accounting adjustment’.

4. the continued suggestion that the Group’s economic difficulties are attributable to cash support provided to RWDM and Botafogo is false, a fact that is well-known to the current management team of EFG/OL:

a. Every independent analysis of the intercompany receivables position clearly favors RWDM and Botafogo, as evidenced by the wire transfer documentation that has been provided in court proceedings.

b. Yet, the smear campaign is not only directed at prior management, as the false claims of EFH/OL have also impacted the reputation of SAF Botafogo in Brazil, which continues to struggle financially, as EFG/OL refuses to repay material sums in intercompany loans.

c. In an internal email, regarding his UEFA sustainability presentation, Mr. Gerlinger even confirms the well-established understanding at EFG/OL (and UEFA) that OL was financially dependent on SAF Botafogo – yet the financial disclosures of EFG/OL continue to include knowingly false claims that money is owed by SAF Botafogo.

In light of the above, EFH believes it is necessary to correct the public record and to reject the misleading narrative advanced by current EFG management.