Crystal Palace’s FA Cup Final victory over Manchester City guaranteed them a UEFA Europa League berth, however the Eagles will now prepare for involvement in a different competition instead.
UEFA officially announced on Friday that Crystal Palace will be demoted to the Conference League for the 2025-26 season. The English Premier League club is reportedly set to appeal UEFA’s decision, according to Sky Sports.
The news comes in part of Ligue 1 side Lyon’s upcoming involvement in the Europa League, who were part-owned by former Palace investor John Textor.
Lyon was originally set for relegation to Ligue 2 due to financial reasons, but won its appeal against the French Football Federation earlier this week. Textor sold his 43% stake in Crystal Palace to Woody Johnson earlier this summer and also resigned from his leadership roles at Lyon during their pending investigation.
UEFA’s multi-club ownership rules state that clubs with the same ownership group cannot play in the same competition, leading to Palace’s drop to the Conference League.
The South London club had never previously qualified for a European competition until May’s victory at Wembley Stadium. Eberechi Eze’s goal against Man City helped Oliver Glasner’s men pull a major upset to help Palace claim their first major trophy in club history.
U.S. men’s national team defender Chris Richards played a leading role in the squad, logging 32 appearances in all competitions. It would mark Richards’ first involvement in a European competition since featuring for Hoffenheim in the Europa League back in 2021-22.
Crystal Palace’s competitive schedule gets underway on August 10 against reigning EPL champions Liverpool in the FA Community Shield.
At the very least they will be in the conference league. I tend to think this will be Richards last season with Palace. Another goid season for him.and a good showing at the WC I foresee bigger teams coming in for him.next summer.
Can someone explain to me how Man City/Girona and RBLeipzig/Salzburg get around the rule?
Is it simply they can prove better that the different clubs under their umbrella act as distinct clubs? So basically City Group and Red Bull have better lawyers?
I looked into this a few weeks ago. “Is it simply they can prove better that the different clubs under their umbrella act as distinct clubs?” Yes.
Heard a guy on the radio explain this yesterday. As JR said, it basically boils down to CFG and RB being smarter about it than John Textor. CFG and RB put different people in charge of their clubs, and it at least looks like there are different people making the significant decisions. Textor is/was the main guy at both CP and Lyon. Part of the problem is that Textor may not have expected to ever have CP and Lyon both qualify for the same Euro competition.
Textor claims he had no operational say at Palace which is why he didn’t put his shares in a blind trust. Apparently UEFA didn’t believe that.
girona and nice’s owners got the same beef but responded by, at least for the year, putting their shares in a blind trust, not making new investments, separating the financials. separating scouting and other cooperation, and not transferring or loaning each other players.
my guess is that lyon’s problem was to try and escape the domestic relegation, they took money from palace to pay lyon’s bills. that makes it harder to say you’re trying real hard right now to keep them separate for the european tournaments.
people talk up pro/rel but losing the first division tv deal and sponsors, and maybe reduced ticket sales, in order to be in a slightly better secondary european tournament, meh. and if you stay in the first division you don’t have to reduce costs/players, the stress of fighting your way back up, and you can get back in europe any year you want, just finish high enough.
last, bears noting that palace being in europe at all is just a quirk. they were 12th in league and just won the cup. ditto girona, nice, etc. in the big picture. i say that, but if they are now owned by rich folks, who knows.
The rule says an owner can’t have decisive control over two organizations in the same tournament. Textor argued he did not have decisive control at Palace. Steve Parish is the chairman and makes the day to day decisions. Textor even mentioned Parish’s unwillingness to listen to Textor as his reason for selling his shares. This still goes to appeal so who knows. Teams almost never win their appeals of relegation because of financial problems, but Lyon won that so…
lyon’s relegation issues were with the FFF and not UEFA.