11th July 2025
July 11 – John Textor’s cup would have been half full, but it now looks to be overflowing. His win with the reinstatement of Olympique Lyonnais to France’s Ligue 1 and hence Europa League participation two months ago would have been balanced by the loss over the expected relegation of Crystal Palace from Europa League participation.
Textor won’t be too bothered by that now as he no longer holds a shareholder position in Palace, but his exit didn’t come in time for UEFA, leaving Palace to deal with the fallout from their former majority shareholder.
Textor, through Eagle Football Holdings, held the majority stake in Crystal Palace, but is also the majority share of Lyon. Textor had a March 1 deadline from UEFA to sell his stake in Crystal Palace in order to meet multi-club ownership rules.
While the Textor stake in Palace has now been sold for £190 million to US investor Woody Johnson, Textor missed the deadline, but still dodged a financial bullet with the sale.
UEFA haven’t confirmed that Palace will be moved down to the Conference League, with Nottingham Forest moving up to the Europa League but that looks like the most likely scenario.
UEFA officials will meet before an official statement is issued and they still could make the decision not penalise the club now that Textor has exited.
Lyon qualified for the Europa League ahead of Palace because they finished sixth in their domestic competition (Lyon were relegated after breaching financial rules in France). Palace finished 12th in the Premier League but qualified via their FA Cup win.
UEFA rules are that where one person has control over multiple clubs which qualify for the same European tournament, the one which finished higher in their domestic league takes the slot.
Contact the writer of this story at [moc.l1752215815labto1752215815ofdlr1752215815owedi1752215815sni@n1752215815osloh1752215815cin.l1752215815uap1752215815](javascript:;)