Chris Richards and Crystal Palace will be playing UEFA Conference League football this season.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) rejected Crystal Palace’s appeal against their demotion from the UEFA Europa League, the federation announced Monday. Due to multi-club ownership rules, UEFA’s Club Financial Control Body (CFCB) ruled that Crystal Palace could not participate in the Europa League, along with Ligue 1 side Lyon.
American owner John Textor had ownership stakes in both clubs and despite Textor eventually selling his Palace shares to Woody Johnson, the Eagles were not allowed to feature in the competition.
Due to Crystal Palace’s demotion to the Conference League, Nottingham Forest were bumped up to the Europa League in its place.
The Eagles originally qualified for the Europa League after winning the FA Cup last May, lifting their first trophy in club history.
Oliver Glasner’s squad recently lifted their second trophy in the past four months on Sunday, downing reigning English Premier League champions Liverpool 3-2 in penalty kicks in the Community Shield. The two sides played out a 2-2 scoreline after 90 minutes before goalkeeper Dean Henderson made two key shootout saves for the South London club.
Crystal Palace will begin its league campaign on Sunday at London rivals Chelsea.
I don’t know the ins and outs of this whole thing but the optics seem a little suspect considering Man City/Girona and
RB Leipzig/Salzburg.
The other organizations had clear delineations between each club. They didn’t have anyone doing work (at least officially for both). The Eagle Football Group could not prove those differences between clubs. I think mostly because Textor dabbled in all his clubs. It seems the ties between Botofogo and Lyon were much stronger but Textor knew this was a potential problem but no one worried about it until May because they didn’t think they’d qualify.
Clear delineations….
From their 2017/18 ruling allowing RBL and Red Bull Salzburg in the Champions League: A UEFA statement read: “Following a thorough investigation, and further to several important governance and structural changes made by the clubs (regarding corporate matters, financing, personnel, sponsorship arrangements, etc.), the CFCB deemed that no individual or legal entity had anymore a decisive influence over more than one club participating in a UEFA club competition.”
————————-
There’s also a lawsuit brought by Bruno Lage because he claims he was promised a job by Textor at either Palace or Lyon when he took the Botofogo job. That didn’t happen and Lage left Botofogo for Benfica. This seems to indicate Textor at least told people he had control of both clubs.
——————/
The crux of the appeal ruling seemed to be, you were given a deadline to make changes and you didn’t do anything until well after the deadline passed.