Crystal Palace have been banned from the Europa League and moved into the Conference League after Uefa concluded the FA Cup winners were in breach of its multi-club ownership rules.
The Palace chair Steve Parish described the decision as “probably one of the greatest injustices that has ever happened in European football” and said that the club – who have never played in a major European competition – are likely to appeal to the court of arbitration for sport.
“We’re devastated – I think it’s a bad day for football,” Parish told Sky Sports. “I think most football fans, right minded football fans will see what injustice, terrible injustice this is for the football club. [An appeal] is one option.
“I think what we would much prefer is if somebody intervened in this process. We believe it’s possible for [Uefa president Aleksander] Mr Ceferin or somebody to do that.”
Nottingham Forest are in line to be promoted from the Conference League to take Palace’s Europa League spot but Uefa will wait for any court proceedings to end before making an announcement.
The ban had been expected after Lyon won their appeal against relegation to Ligue 2 this week, clearing them to take their place in the tournament.
Clubs with the same owner are barred from competing in the same Uefa competition if an individual or ownership group is considered to have a decisive influence over more than one of those teams.
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John Textor is Palace’s largest shareholder and the owner of Lyon. A 1 March deadline for resolving multi-club ownership issues was not met and although Textor recently agreed a deal to sell his Palace shares to the US billionaire Woody Johnson, the move has not been completed and was deemed to have come too late. Uefa said in a statement that its club financial control body had concluded that the multi-club ownership criteria had been breached and had decided “to reject Crystal Palace’s admission to the 2025-26 Uefa Europa League and to accept Crystal Palace’s admission to the 2025-26 Uefa Conference League”.
Lyon qualified for the Europa League by finishing sixth in France’s top division and had agreed with Uefa that they would be excluded from its club competitions if their relegation, imposed for financial reasons, was not overturned. Lyon’s higher league position last season gives them precedence for the Europa League spot.
Textor resigned from his leadership positions at Lyon this month, including from the board, and Michele Kang was named as the president and chair.
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Palace’s four co-owners – Textor, Parish, Josh Harris and David Blitzer – were part of a club delegation that attended a meeting at Uefa’s headquarters in Nyon and argued that Textor did not have a decisive influence at Selhurst Park.
That, though, did not convince Uefa and the governing body rejected an attempt by Textor and Blitzer to place their shares in a blind trust because they had missed the March deadline. Use of a blind trust has enabled other clubs with the same owners to play together in a Uefa competition.
On Thursday Textor had toldsaid on TalkSport: “Why should I put my interest in a trust back before March when the rule says you only have to do it if you have decisive influence? I don’t.”
