Lyon are eyeing up Nottingham Forest’s Danilo and Matt Turner for this summer, according to [L’Equipe](https://www.lequipe.fr/Football/Article/Mercato-l-ol-pourrait-encore-acheter-deux-joueurs-a-nottingham/1567937).
Last summer, both the Ligue 1 club and the Reds had to balance their books.
Lyon owner John Textor and Nottingham Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis share close ties and have clearly decided to help each other. This saw the French club paying over €60m to the Premier League club to buy Orel Mangala and Moussa Niakhaté.
L’Equipe say the Greek billionaire then helped Lyon, without providing any details on what he did.
The American entrepreneur owns Botafogo and two of their players, Igor Jesus and Jair Cunha, are close to joining Nottingham Forest. They are also keen on their Cuiabano, but L’Equipe say it’s not given then he will join the Reds and could end up at Brighton & Hove Albion.
To be clear, the French newspaper may be wide of the mark there.
In November, France’s DNCG threatened Lyon with relegation if they didn’t improve their financial situation. Textor will have a new hearing with DNCG on June 24th, where he has to convince them to avoid further sanctions.
L’Equipe state: _‘The American owner emphasised to the body that Eagle’s multi-club model, based on pooling cash, was their primary means of financing. Therefore, what’s good for Botafogo would be good for OL.’_
Botafogo are in the process of selling Jesus and Jair to the English club for €35m.
The newspaper adds: _‘OL \[Lyon\] owns the economic rights to these players and would retain a significant percentage of the resale, not the capital gain.’_
The Botafogo duo and Cuiabano are likely to be sold after the Club World Cup, meaning it may not help Textor and Lyon for their hearing with France’s financial watchdog on June 24th.
The newspaper states that if Lyon were to be passed by DNCG, Textor could ‘return the favour’ to Nottingham Forest by buying Danilo and Turner for over €30m.
The 24-year-old Brazilian is said to have already agreed terms with the Ligue 1 club, which goes against earlier claims he was blocking a move due a clause that he could be sent to Botafogo, which he doesn’t want.