GENEVA (AP) — UEFA demoted Crystal Palace to the third-tier Conference League on Friday because of the English cup winner’s ownership ties to French club Lyon through American businessman John Textor.
Textor’s 43% minority stake in Palace — even though he had limited decision-making influence there — while he owned Lyon outright, conflicted with UEFA rules on multi-club ownership designed to protect the integrity of its competitions.
UEFA said its club finance panel accepted Lyon’s entry into the second-tier Europa League instead. Lyon qualified on merit by placing sixth in Ligue 1 this season but its entry was in jeopardy because of persistent financial turmoil.
The decision follows the financially troubled French club being reprieved this week from demotion to Ligue 2.
UEFA’s decision came after six weeks of uncertainty for the south London club which has taken the shine off the first qualification for European competitions in its history. Palace beat Manchester City in the FA Cup final in May.
Palace can challenge the UEFA ruling at the Court of Arbitration for Sport. A fast-track case would need to be held within about one month before Conference League qualifying playoffs.
Textor has been an increasingly controversial figure in global soccer, also owning Brazilian club Botafogo and Belgium’s Molenbeek while being linked with a failed bid to buy Everton.
He has reportedly agreed on a deal to sell his Palace stake to Woody Johnson, the New York Jets owner and former U.S. Ambassador to Britain in the first Trump administration.
Forest may replace Palace
Nottingham Forest should now step up into the Europa League from the Conference League, which is potentially worth 20 million euros (dollars) more in UEFA prize money.
Forest has had its own potential multi-club issues because Evangelis Marinakis also owns Greek league winner Olympiakos which will play in the Champions League.
UEFA has repeatedly warned in recent years about the growing trend for investors to take stakes or full ownership in multiple clubs in different countries, and the potential threats to the integrity of games and the transfer market.
Multi-club ownership has been especially popular with investors from the United States. One of the most notorious networks was built by Miami-based 777 Partners which failed in the last year after also being linked to an Everton bid.
Longer established international multi-club groups were built by the Red Bull drinks giant, which includes Leipzig and New York Red Bulls, and the Abu Dhabi-backed City Football Group centered on Man City.
The multi-club phenomenon presents UEFA with several cases to review toward the end of each season, assessing if clubs that have close ties and qualify for the same competition can comply with the rules.
In 2023, UEFA required AC Milan and Toulouse, Brighton and Union Saint-Gilloise, plus Aston Villa and Vitoria Guimaraes to change their ownership structures to comply. This could involve owners selling stakes or putting shares in a one-year blind trust, plus putting embargoes on related clubs transferring players between each other or sharing scouting databases.
In 2024, UEFA took decisions against Man City and Girona for the Champions League, and Manchester United and Nice for the Europa League.
This season, Palace-Lyon was the signature case, though UEFA fully removed two clubs from the Conference League: Drogheda from Ireland and FC DAC 14 of Slovakia.
Key to the Palace judgement was the club not meeting a March deadline set by UEFA to create separation from Lyon. UEFA framed an earlier deadline this season in part because of the uncertainty created each June by the increasing workload for its club finance monitoring panel.
The panel is chaired by Sunil Gulati, a professor of economics at Columbia University in New York and a former president of the U.S. Soccer Federation.
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AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
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