🦅 John Textor stars in ‘Eagle vs. Eagle’

The last three years have been by far the most turbulent in the long history of the traditional Rio de Janeiro football club Botafogo. After almost three decades of futility, they looked certain to win the Brazilian league in 2023 before succumbing to one of the biggest bottle-jobs in living memory. 

Then, last year, they won it all: becoming Brazilian and South American champions.

Two-thirds into the 2025 season, and the pendulum has swung in the opposite direction. A famous win over PSG in the Club World Cup aside, it hasn’t been a good year for Botafogo. They’re out of the domestic cup and the continental Copa Libertadores, and are 11 points off the pace in the league. Ownership battles and murmurs of financial issues suggest the club’s future may be murky.

It has definitely been a rollercoaster, and much of Botafogo’s ups and downs since 2023 can be credited to one man: the outspoken 59-year-old American businessman John Textor.

Since buying Botafogo in 2022, he’s brought the club investment, quality players, belief, trophies — but also a certain layer of administrative mystery. And now, amid financial scandal and threatened punishment, he’s facing the possibility of being forced out of Rio de Janeiro by the very company he founded.

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