Crystal Palace chairman Steve Parish celebrates FA Cup win (Image: PA)
Crystal Palace chairman Steve Parish feels Oliver Glasner has taken the club to ‘another level’ after the Eagles were crowned FA Cup winners for the first time on Saturday.
It was third time lucky in an FA Cup final for Palace – after tasting defeat in 1990 and 2016 – when Eberechi Eze’s first half strike made Glasner’s side the 55th winners of the oldest cup competition.
Glasner, 50, took over at Palace from Roy Hodgson in February 2024 and has cemented himself as the club’s greatest manager only 15 months into his tenure.
On the road to securing silverware in his first full season in charge, the Eagles knocked Stockport County, Doncaster Rovers, Millwall, Fulham, Aston Villa and Manchester City out of the competition, conceding only once and scoring 13.
Palace chairman Parish reflected on the job Glasner has done at Selhurst Park since taking the Eagles from four points clear of relegation to FA Cup winners.
“It’s such a fantastic day for South London, for the fans, for everybody who has been on the journey at this club forever and everyone who has helped take this club to another level over the last 15 years,” he said.
“Everyone has helped us along the way, and Oliver has just gone to another level. For someone like Oliver, this doesn’t happen by accident. He wants to win things.
“He wants to give people joy and he has given me a lot of joy back in football by helping me believe we could do this.
“This week, I have been telling everyone we would win. If we lost, then fine, Sunday, I would have felt bad. But I believed we would win.
“Sometimes, maybe, I’ve been a part of the lack of belief. You can see what he’s done to the fans. They were already incredible, but they don’t miss a beat.
“They believe the team will win. We had a disallowed goal, we missed a penalty in the semi-final, but the fans just keep going. I just thought we were outstanding, it’s great for the area and the community.”
Winning the FA Cup not only comes with the illustrious trophy and £2m prize money, but a spot in next season’s Europa League, a competition Palace will compete in for the first time. However, for Glasner, it is reunification with the competition he won at Eintracht Frankfurt in 2022.
Parish, who bought Palace in 2010, admitted continental football will be a challenge for the football club, but conceded having a manager who has been successful in Europe is reason to be excited.
“Europa League will be a real journey. Fans going to far-flung places, Palace on tour, it’s the stuff of dreams. We are looking forward to it.
“Obviously, we are going to have to get to work pretty quickly and think about what it means. We’ve got a manager who’s done it, which is hugely helpful.
“It’s a bit unknown for the rest of us. With the players we’ve got – like Jefferson Lerma, Daniel Munoz and Marc Guehi – these guys have played in big games and are not going to be overwhelmed, they’re not going to be frightened to go to these places.
“We’re looking forward to it. As Joel [Ward] said in the dressing room, this isn’t the ceiling, we are hoping to go above this.
“Sometimes, it feels like it’s harder to get in there than it is once you are in there. It’ll be a new experience for us.
“We won’t get carried away. It’ll be difficult. We have the right team of people, a good manager, we will give it a go and who knows.
“I always think about the work. You have to think about the work. We’ve all seen clubs get carried away.
“We know playing on a Thursday night alongside league football is a challenge; we can see that from other clubs.
“We’ve got to work with the manager, use his experience and knowledge, and try and plan to have a squad that can cope with it.
“It’s been a slow upward curve, we’re not going to lose our minds, but we will take advantage of the situation, be positive and see what we can achieve.”
“When we got promoted, it was all about being in the Premier League, and it still is, but equally, there’s another sort of league developing of clubs that regularly qualify for Europe.
“There’s reasonable money in the Europa League; it’s not massive money, but it’s decent money, and it creates a bit of a gap.
“If we can keep doing those things, think about that and believe in those things, then it gets rid of the very bad alternative. Hopefully, it’s not the first and only time we qualify.”
Alongside Glasner’s prowess, strategic recruitment aimed at utilising emerging talents has contributed to Palace's FA Cup success.
Maxence Lacroix, Adam Wharton, Eberechi Eze and Marc Guehi joined the Eagles for less than £70 combined.
While Palace have implemented an effective recruitment process, Parish believes that securing European football will help attract more talent to south London.
"It doesn’t hurt, does it? When you are going for players, it’s ‘ah, he wants to play in Europe,’ so of course you’ve got that in your locker.
"We had a player who was maybe not that interested, and they watched the semi-final, and then his agent called us and said he’s watched it and is quite interested in being a part of it.
"It's about performances, but don’t forget the fans. They are so important for the players.
"You don’t get many fans like this that are so supportive all of the time. 99.9% of them give so much support, even when it’s difficult, and that means a lot to the players.
"They know they are coming to a good and stable environment. Of course, add on Europe and it’s a big plus."
Looking ahead, the Palace chairman and co-owner is hungry for further success after winning the club's first major piece of silverware.
"We want to win again. Once you’ve won one, you never forget it and want that feeling back. It’s so difficult to win these things.
"There was some talk about whether it’s right to get into Europe for winning a cup, but it did used to be called the Cup Winners Cup, that’s what it was for.
"Surely, when you look at the big teams who haven’t won a cup for so long, surely you get something for winning it. It’s so hard.
"We didn’t steal our way here, Fulham away, Aston Villa, Manchester City – fantastic, European-challenging teams that we beat. We want to keep doing it if we can."