In July 2024<\/a>, UEFA cleared multi-club pairs Manchester City and Girona (Champions League), and Manchester United and Nice (Europa League), to compete in the same tournaments due to off-field restructuring.<\/p>\nEuropean football\u2019s governing body said that \u201cfollowing the implementation of significant changes by the concerned investors\u201d in both Nice and Girona, no one has \u201ccontrol or decisive influence\u201d over both teams.<\/p>\n
A statement from the First Chamber of UEFA\u2019s Club Financial Control Body(CFCB) on Friday read: \u201cThe CFCB First Chamber had opened proceedings against Crystal Palace and Olympique Lyonnais due to a potential conflict with the multi-club ownership rule provided for in Article 5 of the UEFA Club Competitions Regulations.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn 9 July 2025, the appeal instance of the French financial control authority (DNCG) decided not to relegate Olympique Lyonnais to Ligue 2. Consequently, and following an assessment by the CFCB of all the other relevant conditions included in the settlement agreement, Olympique Lyonnais will not be excluded from the 2025\/26 UEFA club competitions (see media release of 30 June 2025).<\/p>\n
\u201cConsequently, the CFCB First Chamber pursued the assessment of the documentation submitted by Olympique Lyonnais and Crystal Palace and concluded that the clubs breached, as at 1 March 2025, the multi-club ownership criteria foreseen in Art 5.01 of the UEFA Club Competition Regulations.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor this reason, and in accordance with the provisions set in Art. 5.02, 5.03 and 5.04 of the UEFA Club Competitions Regulations, the CFCB First Chamber decided:<\/p>\n
\u2022 To accept Olympique Lyonnais\u2019 admission to the 2025\/26 UEFA Europa League; and<\/p>\n
\u2022 To reject Crystal Palace\u2019s admission to the 2025\/26 UEFA Europa League and to accept Crystal Palace\u2019s admission to the 2025\/26 UEFA Conference League.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe present decision may be appealed against before the Court of Arbitration for Sport, in accordance with Articles 62 and 63 of the UEFA Statutes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018A burning sense of injustice\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\nThis feels eerily familiar. Palace were denied what they thought would be a UEFA Cup place after their most successful top-flight season saw them finish third in 1990-91 under Steve Coppell\u2019s management. English clubs had been banned from European competition following the Heysel disaster in 1985, with Liverpool handed an extended ban. However, Liverpool\u2019s ban was lifted a few weeks before the end of the campaign, meaning Palace missed out.<\/p>\n
This time around, in different circumstances, the \u2018punishment\u2019 is lighter, albeit no less infuriating given Palace will feel they have been denied the opportunity to participate in a competition for which they legitimately qualified. They will instead compete in the Europa Conference League, the lesser of the two tournaments.<\/p>\n
While that is some compensation, a burning sense of injustice will remain unless an appeal is successful if and when it\u2019s heard by CAS, in which case Palace will, as they feel is their right, be admitted to the Europa League after all.<\/p>\n
If Textor was still involved then this would have presented questions as to how sustainable the ownership situation was, but he will depart Palace when the sale of Eagle\u2019s share completes.<\/p>\n
But the reality is that Palace have never operated like a true multi-club group, due primarily to Parish\u2019s reluctance to embrace that model. While it may not have saved them a Europa League place here, it has prevented them from being caught up quite so much in the chaos that seems to be following Eagle in France.<\/p>\n
As it is, Palace\u2019s ownership situation looks to now be more settled and they will be increasingly wary of taking any future investment that puts them in a potentially awkward position.<\/p>\n
This decision feels unjust given how little involvement Textor had, but UEFA believe they have failed to prove that Textor did not hold decisive influence. Unless they can successfully overturn the decision then it may be a source of regret that they did not foresee this potential conflict either when the American arrived or when they hoped to push for a European spot.<\/p>\n
On the back of their most successful Premier League season, this outcome threatens to overshadow their outstanding achievement and the joy that came with it in the most unjust manner.<\/p>\n
(Adrian Dennis\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Crystal Palace being denied entry to this coming season\u2019s Europa League is a \u201cterrible injustice\u201d and a \u201cbad…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":58008,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[9438,42333,42334,16869,220,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-58007","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-crystal-palace","9":"tag-europa-league","10":"tag-fa-cup","11":"tag-nottingham-forest","12":"tag-premier-league","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114837011074015011","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58007"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58007\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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