The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has dismissed Crystal Palace’s appeal against their demotion to the Conference League.
It means Nottingham Forest will instead play in the Europa League — a tournament for which Palace qualified via their historic FA Cup win at the end of last season — in their place.
Palace were deemed to have breached UEFA’s multi-club ownership rules, with John Textor’s Eagle Football’s 43 per cent stake in Palace deemed to be in conflict with Eagle Football’s majority stake in French side Lyon after both clubs qualified for the Europa League.
Textor sold Eagle Football’s shareholding in Palace to Woody Johnson, the owner of NFL franchise the New York Jets, in July.
Even though CAS has provided clarity on the matter by dismissing Palace’s appeal — they will detail their reasoning further unless any of the parties involved requests confidentiality — the FA Cup and Community Shield winners will undoubtedly still feel aggrieved about their Europa League demotion.
The Athletic has broken down what CAS has said and what it all means…
How did we get to this point?
UEFA’s Club Financial Control Body (CFCB) ruled in July that the 43 per cent stake that John Textor, via Eagle Football, owned in Crystal Palace was in conflict with Eagle Football’s majority stake in French club Lyon after both clubs qualified for the Europa League.
Lyon’s higher domestic finish meant they were permitted entry to UEFA’s competition instead of Crystal Palace.
The CFCB noted that Palace had not put arrangements in place before a deadline of March 1 to comply with UEFA’s multi-club ownership rules.
The Premier League side had argued that Textor did not have a decisive influence at the club and that they had not pursued putting his shares into a blind trust because they had never been part of Textor’s multi-club group.
Palace chairman Steve Parish lifts the FA Cup in May (Alex Broadway/Getty Images)
However, in a statement that was published in August 2021 and is still on Palace’s official website, Steve Parish, the club’s chairman, noted how Textor had “invested significant sums” which helped to “facilitate the rejuvenation of the squad” and “bolster the balance sheet”.
In an interview with the BBC in August 2024, Parish said of Textor that they “do collaborate with his clubs where we can”.
Nottingham Forest’s lawyers were aware of both Palace’s statement on their website and Parish’s interview with BBC Sport and would have made sure CAS were also alert to them.
What does CAS’s ruling say?
At the top of their ruling, CAS’s panel outlined that Palace had requested to be readmitted to the Europa League and that either Nottingham Forest or Lyon should have their admission rejected.
“After considering the evidence, the panel found that John Textor, founder of Eagle Football Holdings, had shares in CPFC and OL (Olympique Lyon) and was a board member with decisive influence over both clubs at the time of UEFA’s assessment date,” the CAS ruling said.
“The panel also dismissed the argument by CPFC that they received unfair treatment in comparison to Nottingham Forest and OL.
“The panel considered that the UEFA regulations are clear and do not provide flexibility to clubs that are non-compliant on the assessment date, as CPFC claimed.”
The CAS hearing took place on August 8 at its headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, and the three-person panel was comprised of Luigi Fumagalli, Manfred Nan and Olivier Carrard.
Palace’s players celebrate winning the Community Shield against Liverpool on Sunday (Julian Finney/Getty Images)
What does this mean for Crystal Palace?
Put simply, they will be playing in UEFA’s third-tier club competition this season.
Having won the FA Cup, Palace were looking forward to competing in the Europa League — a tournament that was won by Tottenham Hotspur last season, securing them entry into this year’s Champions League — but now find themselves having to play in the Conference League.
Ahead of the CAS ruling, Parish, who attended the hearing on August 8, described their initial demotion to the Conference League as “a terrible injustice”.
Although the ambition was to play in the Europa League, this season will still mark the first time in the club’s history that they will be playing in a European club competition.
Will Nottingham Forest benefit from this ruling?
Absolutely. Instead of playing in the Conference League, they will now be playing in the more lucrative and prestigious Europa League.
CAS rejected Palace’s claim that they had been unfairly treated in comparison to Nottingham Forest and Lyon.
Evangelos Marinakis, the Nottingham Forest owner who also owns Greek club Olympiakos, avoided falling foul of the multi-club ownership rules by diluting his control of Forest and putting his shares in a blind trust.
He did this at a time when Forest were well placed to qualify for the Champions League, a competition in which Olympiakos have regularly played.
Nuno Espirito Santo and Forest will compete in this season’s Europa League (Angel Martinez/Getty Images)
How much do teams earn in the Europa and Conference Leagues?
While this all pales by comparison to the far more lucrative Champions League, the overall prize pot for teams competing in the Europa League is just shy of double that of the Conference League, at €565million (£487m; $660m). Forest will bank €4.31m for their league phase qualification, while the prize for winning a league phase match is €450,000, and €150,000 to clubs for a draw.
Each of the 36 clubs in the Conference League’s initial league phase immediately bank €3.17m — an equal share of €114m money distributed to the qualifiers and up to 40 per cent of the competition’s overall €285m prize pot. For every victory in their six league phase matches, clubs earn €400,000.
When do Palace and Forest’s respective European campaigns begin?
Palace will face the losers of the Europa League qualifier between Fredrikstad, a Norwegian side, and Denmark’s Midtjylland in the Conference League play-off round.
Given Midtjylland comfortably won the first leg (3-1) in Fredrikstad, it is likely Palace will face the Norwegian team. The two-legged play-off round is slated to take place on August 21, with the return leg the following week. In between those games, Palace will host Forest in the Premier League.
Forest’s Europa League campaign will begin on either September 24 or September 25, which is when the league phase gets underway.
The draw for the Conference League and Europa League group stage is on August 29.
Will there be knock-on effects for UEFA now?
Palace winning their first major trophy and subsequently qualifying to play in Europe for the first time in their history was a good story, and this whole episode is somewhat damaging to UEFA in a romantic sense.
Ultimately, however, the rules were in place and Palace have been judged to have fallen foul of them.
The logical thing to do would be for UEFA to change the mid-season deadline — that was set last season for March 1, though clubs were then given extensions to comply that stretched to the end of April — and move it back to the end of the season. This would mean clubs would not have to dance through various hoops and put shares into a blind trust during the middle of the season on the off chance they may qualify for a UEFA competition.
But any changes to the rules would be a decision for the CFCB to consider.
Can Crystal Palace challenge CAS’s ruling?
Technically speaking, yes, but whether they opt to explore that avenue remains to be seen.
They could escalate their appeal to the Swiss Federal Tribunal, although they would only consider the procedural and policy issues as opposed to offering a new verdict on the merits of Palace’s case.
That alone makes Palace’s admission back into the Europa League an unlikely one.
Indeed, the Palace chairman, Steve Parish, suggested after Sunday’s Community Shield victory over Liverpool that the club would compete in the Conference League if the CAS decision went against them.
(Top photo: Crystal Pix/MB Media/Getty Images)