{"id":339056,"date":"2025-08-12T18:00:14","date_gmt":"2025-08-12T18:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/339056\/"},"modified":"2025-08-12T18:00:14","modified_gmt":"2025-08-12T18:00:14","slug":"crystal-palace-hit-out-at-europa-league-ban-merit-is-rendered-meaningless-crystal-palace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/339056\/","title":{"rendered":"Crystal Palace hit out at Europa League ban: \u2018Merit is rendered meaningless\u2019 | Crystal Palace"},"content":{"rendered":"

Crystal Palace have called on Uefa to scrap its rules on multiclub \u00adownership (MCO) and questioned whether they received a fair hearing at the court of arbitration of sport after their appeal against demotion from the Europa League was rejected<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Cas confirmed on Monday it had upheld Uefa\u2019s decision<\/a> to demote the FA Cup winners to the Conference League after it decided John Textor held shares and had a decisive influence in Palace and Lyon, who also qualified for the Europa League. \u00adTextor has since sold his 44.9% stake<\/a> in the club to another US businessman, Woody Johnson.<\/p>\n

Palace, who are expected to miss out on up to \u00a320m in extra revenue as a result, confirmed in a strongly worded statement they would take their place in the Conference League \u2013 in which they will face Norway\u2019s Fredrikstad or Midtjylland of Denmark in a playoff this month \u2013 as they continue to take legal advice on whether to make a claim against Uefa<\/a> for compensation.<\/p>\n

Palace described the decision to sanction them as evidence that \u201csporting merit is rendered \u00admeaningless\u201d and claimed that \u201ccertain clubs, organisations and individuals have a unique privilege and power\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis growing and unhealthy influence has shattered the hopes and dreams of Crystal Palace<\/a> \u00adsupporters and does not bode well for \u00adaspirational teams all over Europe competing to progress when rules and sanctions are unevenly applied in the most flagrant way,\u201d Palace said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMulticlub structures hide behind the charade of a \u2018blind trust\u2019 while clubs such as ours, who have no \u00adconnection to another club \u00adwhatsoever, are prevented from \u00adplaying in the same competition.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo compound the injustice, clubs that appear to have huge informal arrangements with each other are also allowed to participate and even possibly play against each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

Several clubs who are part of MCOs have been able to place their \u00adownership in blind trusts to circumvent Uefa\u2019s regulations, although \u00adPalace missed the original 1 March deadline to do so. They are believed to have presented evidence to Cas that only members of the European Club Association (ECA) were informed the deadline could be extended until 31 May. That argument was rejected by the Cas panel, which said that Uefa\u2019s regulations were clear \u201cand do not provide flexibility to clubs that are non-compliant on the assessment date\u201d.<\/p>\n

The regulations were updated last year to allow clubs who are part of MCOs to compete in different Uefa competitions, but Palace believe \u00adfurther changes are needed from European football\u2019s governing body.<\/p>\n

\u201cA combination of poorly conceived regulations and their \u00adunequal application means our brilliant fans will be deprived of the chance to watch this team compete in the Europa League for the first time in our history,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThis should be a turning point for football. Uefa must fulfil its \u00admandate to pass coherent rules which are\u00a0\u00adproperly communicated and applied, with reasonable cure periods to resolve uncertainty and consistent\u00a0sanctions, treating all clubs equally with a proper appeal process.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe European court of justice has made it clear that rulings similar to this will be under greater scrutiny from national courts in future. Only then will fairness and due process be granted to every team.\u201d<\/p>\n

Palace were also critical of their treatment at Cas, with frustration understood to stem from its refusal to consider what they believe was crucial evidence of correspondence between the ECA and some of its clubs over the extended deadline.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile we respect the Cas tribunal members, the process is designed to severely restrict and, in our case, make it almost impossible to receive a fair hearing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe denial of all disclosure requests to obtain correspondence between the relevant parties, the refusal to allow witness testimony from those involved and the \u00adgeneral lack of formality and respect for law mean decisions cannot be \u00adproperly challenged, leading to pre-\u00addetermined outcomes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cas said: \u201cCas rules are \u00adlongstanding and designed to ensure fairness in the sporting world. In line with this practice, all parties on 8 August 2025 were given a formal opportunity to raise any \u00adconcern about the running of the\u00a0process. No objections were raised to state that the right to a fair hearing was not respected.\u201d<\/p>\n

Uefa declined to comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Crystal Palace have called on Uefa to scrap its rules on multiclub \u00adownership (MCO) and questioned whether they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":339057,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13,12,14],"class_list":{"0":"post-339056","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115017103731447348","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=339056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339056\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/339057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}