The start of the new season was supposed to be a continuation of a summer’s long celebration for Crystal Palace. After lifting the club’s maiden major trophy last May, fans could have expected to be in a buoyant mood heading into a season offering the prospect of European football. Yet any feeling of excitement has been extinguished by the club’s demotion to the third tier of European competition, confirmed just this month following an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
“After considering the evidence, the panel found that John Textor, founder of Eagle Football Holdings, had shares in CPFC and OL and was a Board member with decisive influence over both clubs at the time of Uefa’s assessment date. The panel also dismissed the argument by CPFC that they received unfair treatment in comparison to Nottingham Forest and OL. The panel considered that the Uefa regulations are clear and do not provide flexibility to clubs that are non-compliant on the assessment date, as CPFC claimed.”
This final decision has followed a protracted period of uncertainty for Crystal Palace, as they were accused of breaching UEFA’s multi-club ownership rules earlier this year. It had been widely reported that Nottingham Forest were the club to lodge a complaint with UEFA for the breach – Forest were also the club to benefit from Palace’s demotion with a place in the Europa League. The bitter irony here for Crystal Palace is the fact that Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis also has a controlling stake in Olympiakos, but had put his Forest shares in a blind trust in advance of the UEFA deadline – his level of ‘direct control’ though is debatable.
What are the multi-club ownership rules?
UEFA’s multi-club ownership rules prevent any individual or entity from exercising control or decisive influence over more than one club in the same UEFA competition, in order to protect integrity and fair play. This covers ownership stakes, board appointments, and financial or operational influence. Recent changes (2024) allow clubs with shared owners to play in different UEFA competitions in the same season, provided governance and operations are clearly separated. To comply, owners often reduce stakes, use blind trusts, or restrict transfers and commercial links between their clubs.
Where does the blame lie?
It is easy to blame UEFA here. They are the governing body that ultimately created the rules and decided to hand the punishment down to Crystal Palace. Palace fans would likely point to the fact this is unprecedented, and hasn’t been applied to other clubs in the past with similar ownership structures and who didn’t make the same efforts to divest – John Textor has since sold his stake in the club to Woody Johnson of the New York Jets. Whilst it is easy to sympathise here, fundamentally Palace have still broken the rules and in doing so risked punishment by UEFA.
As much as he might cry foul about the situation, the blame should lie firmly at the door of Chairman and co-owner of the club, Steve Parish. Rather than accept any level of responsibility for the situation, he instead chose to hit back at UEFA after the original verdict, describing it as “one of the greatest injustices” in the history of European football. A club statement following the appeal to CAS – which was likely orchestrated by Parish – focused on the inconsistency of the punishment, and the questionable governance structures of other clubs. What he didn’t do was offer the fans of Crystal Palace a direct apology for the situation.
Parish was the figure that orchestrated investment back in 2021 when John Textor’s Eagle Football Holdings Group purchased a 40% stake. As an owner, it is his responsibility to assess the implications of governance changes and the adherence to the legal frameworks applicable to the club. Textor’s involvement in Botafogo and Lyon was not a secret, and a well-run business would be doing continual due diligence on the matter – especially when potentially falling under a new jurisdiction in the near future, as it would with Europa League participation.
Rather than accept any semblance of blame or culpability, the club’s hierarchy have instead decided to play the victim in this case.
It’s easy to forget the main victims in this – the Palace fans themselves who have had the opportunity to experience Europa League football taken away from them. That being said, they still have the Conference League to look forward to and few in the sporting world would begrudge them some magical European nights to hopefully blur the memories of this summer.
Do they deserve an apology from their Chairman as well?