Crystal Palace’s Europa League place could hinge on whether Uefa decides to allow the French club Lyon to take part in the competition next season.
Uefa’s Club Financial Control Body (CFCB) disqualified Lyon
— owned by the Palace shareholder John Textor — from European competitions in
December but allowed them to continue after the club met certain demands.
Manchester United eliminated them from the Europa League at the quarter-final
stage.
However, Lyon are being “carefully monitored” by the CFCB
and if they are deemed to be in breach of a settlement agreement they could be
disqualified from next season’s Europa League.
That should leave Palace, who qualified for the Europa
League after winning the FA Cup, in the clear in relation to Uefa’s multiclub ownership
rules, which obliged sister clubs to set up separate ownership structures
before March 1 if they hoped to play in the same competition next season.
Rival clubs such as Nottingham Forest and Palace rivals Brighton &
Hove Albion, who did take such steps to separate their ownership structures
from those of other clubs in European competitions, could stand to benefit if
Palace are excluded from the Europa League.
Forest — whose owner, Evangelos Marinakis, diluted his
control of the club because he also owns the Greek team Olympiacos — could take
the Europa League place, with Brighton, who finished a place below Forest in
the Premier League, getting their Conference League spot.
Palace chiefs met the CFCB in Nyon, Switzerland, on Tuesday
to present their case that, whatever happens to Lyon, they are not in breach of
the rules as the clubs are not part of the same ownership group and do not
share any staff, facilities or information.
Textor, an American businessman, owns 43 per cent of
Palace’s shares but the club argue that he has no say over day-to-day
operations. Textor, 59, has only 25 per cent of the voting rights at Palace,
alongside Steve Parish, the chairman, and two other partners, Josh Harris and
David Blitzer, and indeed has previously spoken about his frustration at the
lack of influence he has at Selhurst Park. He has also been trying to sell his
shares in Palace for months.
Multi-club ownership poses some dilemmas for Uefa, but the
links here are relatively tenuous.
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