English Premier League soccer side Crystal Palace will play in the third-tier pan-European Conference League this season after losing their appeal against governing body UEFA’s decision to demote them from the second-tier Europa League.
The failed appeal means fellow Premier League team Nottingham Forest, who finished seventh last season, will take Palace’s place in the Europa League.
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The ruling by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) comes almost a month after UEFA’s Club Financial Control Body ruled that Palace were too closely linked to French side Olympique Lyonnais.
At the time, Eagle Football Holdings, which is owned by American John Textor, had stakes in Palace (43%) and Lyon (77%), and both teams qualified for the competition.
Lyon finished sixth in France’s top-tier Ligue 1 to qualify, while Palace won its domestic FA Cup competition to enter the Europa League, which ended up running them afoul of UEFA’s legislation on teams from the same ownership group competing in the same competition.
The French outfit takes precedence over Palace in the Europa League due to their higher placement in Ligue 1 compared to Palace’s finish in the Premier League.
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By GlobalDataTextor has since negotiated a £190 million ($255.3 million) sale agreement for his stake in Palace with NFL team owner and former US ambassador to the UK, Woody Johnson, but the deal came after UEFA’s March 1 deadline, which was set before the team had earned its Europa League qualification.
A CAS statement said: "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."
The appeal decision comes a day after Palace beat Liverpool on penalties at Wembley Stadium to lift the Community Shield. Speaking after the game, Palace chairman Steve Parish said the club would look for alternative solutions should the verdict not go their way, adding: “If we don’t get the right outcome, then we will have to look if there’s any steps after that.”
During its appeal hearing, Palace argued UEFA had breached its regulations by treating the club unfairly, that its multi-club rules had been applied inconsistently regarding the March 1 deadline, and that Textor did not have decisive influence at the club, as UEFA claimed.
The club also argued that moving Textor’s share into a blind trust while actively trying to sell it would not have been possible.
A similar situation arose with Nottingham Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis, who placed his share in a blind trust before UEFA’s March 1 deadline to ensure they would be able to join Olympiakos, another of his clubs, in the Champions League if they had qualified.
Forest eventually finished seventh, securing a Conference League place, but will now inherit Palace’s place in the Europa League.
The use of a blind trust to enable other clubs with the same owners to play together in UEFA competition has also drawn the ire of the public, who see it as a loophole with no real influence over whether there is still a conflict of interest.
Speaking to Sportcal (GlobalData Sport) at the time of UEFA’s decision, Conrad Wiacek, GlobalData Sport's head of analysis, said: “With the trend of multi-club ownership becoming more prevalent, UEFA is going to have to seriously address this issue to negate suggestions of corruption and poor governance, as it does seem that the richer and more influential the multi-club ownership groups are, the less rules like the one that saw Palace demoted seem to apply.
“For Palace, the demotion to the Conference League may have a negative impact in terms of partnerships, but ironically could benefit them as they will likely have a greater chance of actually competing in the Conference League, so could see a commercial windfall next summer if they were to deliver success in the competition.”
