There still seems to be a niggling frustration at Crystal Palace’s progress, a feeling that the club could go further and faster, and a fear that they could fail to capitalise on an opportunity to build on this unparalleled success.
That feeling is partly being fuelled by Glasner himself, who
said after a 2-1 defeat by Manchester United last week that he did not
feel the club had backed him sufficiently in the summer transfer window. With
his contract up at the end of this season, there is doubt over his future.
Steve Parish is 15 years into his tenure as Palace chairman
and believes the club is in safe hands with his fellow general partners, U.S.
businessmen Josh Harris and David Blitzer, whom he considers friends. Since the summer, that group has also
included the New York Jets owner Woody Johnson, who bought the stake
previously owned by John Textor as a fourth partner.
It did not happen quickly enough to prevent Palace from
being denied entry to the Europa League, for which they qualified through
their FA Cup victory, due to a multi-club conflict with French side Lyon, who
were owned by the Eagle Football multi-club vehicle in which Textor was a part.
Parish remains steadfast in his belief that Palace were hard
done by in their demotion to the Conference League and that they did not really
operate within a multi-club system. I
have to say that I agree.
Yet there have been questions about how Palace can have
three billionaires on their board and not spend more in the transfer window.
How does he respond to those claims?
“How much money do you think they should spend every year
without any prospect of seeing it again?” he asks. “I put £5m into the club
last year. How much money should I put in every year without a prospect of
seeing it again?
“It’s not really a rational pursuit and everybody accepts
that. But there’s a point at which you always want to be able to do it out of
the resources of the club first. If you keep taking money, you become dependent
on it.
“We’ve got these amazing media revenues (in the Premier
League), but do we have them forever? At the moment, we’re 75 per cent media
revenue. Is that healthy for the club? I don’t think it is.” Again I agree.
Parish — who has emerged as the de facto spokesman of the
Premier League clubs outside the established ‘Big Six’ since Palace’s promotion
in 2013 — is concerned that the effect of the new PL regulations will be to effectively smother
the ambitions of clubs of Palace’s standing.
It is eight years since Palace were first granted planning
permission in principle by Croydon Council to redevelop their stadium,
rebuilding the now-100-year-old Main Stand, and it was due to be completed by
2021.
“It’s no secret that not everyone wanted to do it, so we had
some funding issues,” Parish said, in reference to Textor. “Then the costs got
out of control and now we have managed to get them back under control. We had
massive inflation in the market.
“We’re trying to develop all areas of the club. We’re not a
sovereign state; this is people’s money. It has to make some kind of rational
sense to do it. If you look at the round of what we’re achieving as a club,
facilities, the stadium will start in January, with people seeing holes dug in
the ground, it is a lot.
“If anyone thinks we should just do one or the other (invest
in either the squad or the infrastructure), they are wrong. We need to develop
all elements of the club and be a destination for players, not somewhere some
players see as a stepping stone.”
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