Nottingham Forest may have to wait until the end of the month to definitively find out which European competition they are playing in next season.
Forest have qualified for the Europa Conference League but could yet be promoted to the Europa League amid the possibility that Crystal Palace could be barred from entry.
The FA Cup winners’ berth is under threat because of Uefa’s rulings over multi-club ownership.
Eagle Football, the multi-club group chaired by American businessman John Textor, has stakes in both Palace and French side Lyon, who have also qualified for the Europa League.
Under Uefa’s rules, clubs under the same ownership cannot compete in the same Uefa competition, and it would be Palace who are kicked out because Lyon finished higher in Ligue 1 than Oliver Glasner’s men did in the Premier League.
Palace have been making their case to Uefa and the BBC report that they’ve argued that Textor’s controlling stake at Selhurst Park is under the 30 per cent threshold, while they have also argued they have not collaborated with Lyon in any way for four years, and so their links had no bearing on their FA Cup success.
It’s now up to Uefa to make a decision, and while it was previously suggested a call would be made by the middle of June, the BBC are now reporting it may not be until the end of the month.
If Palace are kicked out, it is expected that Forest would be promoted to the Europa League, with Brighton taking over the Conference League spot if Palace are barred entry there too because of stakeholder David Blitzer’s ownership of Danish side Brondby.
The Telegraph report that Forest believe the Europa League spot should be theirs. Forest had worked to avoid a potential clash of their own, with Evangelos Marinakis putting his Forest shares into a blind trust before the March 1 deadline in case the club qualified for the Champions League alongside Olympiacos.
As things stand, Forest will enter the Conference League as one of 48 teams in the play-off round.
The draw for the round takes place on August 4, with the two-legged tie played across August 21 and August 28.
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