by John Textor has announced that he was trying to sell his participation in Crystal Palace while the club will not be thrown out of Europe next season.
The Eagles qualified for the first time in their history for the European competition last month after a shock cup final against Manchester City in Wembley won a place in the League League league in 2025/26.
Advertising
Crystal Palace’s place has seriously threatened since then because Textor has a share of 43 percent in the club via his Eagle Football Multi-Club group, which also has a controlling 88 percent participation in the French association Lyon, which has also qualified for sixth place in Ligue 1 for the next season.
The UEFA rules state that no person has “control or influence” through the management of two clubs that take part in the same competition.
Leading bodies of the European Football also says: “Nobody can be involved in any capacity in the administration, administration and/or sporting performance of more than one club that takes part in a UEFA club competition.”
In cases where violations are found, it is the association that was higher in its domestic league that retains its place in the competition, which in this case Lyon would be.
Advertising
If it had been determined that Palace violated the UEFA regulations, this would originally result in falling into the conference league because their Premier League degree of the twelfth place was lower than in Ligue 1 of Lyon.
But this spot for conference league could actually go to the Danish side of Brondby, which belonged to the palace minority shareholder David Blitzer, who reached the qualification rounds after he had taken third place in Denmark Superliga this season, which means that despite its historic FA Cup success, the palace risk was removed from Europe.
Palace is confident that they will comply with these UEFA rules because they do not say that Textor can have a controlling influence on the club, since the American, together with co-owner speedster, Josh Harris and Steve Parish, the chairman, who has the club every day, has only 25 percent of voting rights.
The UEFA was aware of the potential conflict last month, but waited for Lyon’s Europa League place to be confirmed before he examined the case and described palace officials for a meeting in Switzerland on Tuesday. Textor then confirmed that he tried to sell his share in the club after planning a boldly attempted takeover beforehand.
Advertising
“Look, all of the Great Britain knows that I have no decisive influence on the palace,” he told the Daily Mail. “It was a good meeting. They listened and we will see what happens. I would not try to sell (this proportion) if I did it.
“We try to separate and sell. We wanted to buy, but it has become clear that it will not happen, and that’s why we try to help the palace and the situation with UEFA. That is all I can say.”
If Palace were thrown out of Europe as a whole, their berth of the Europa League in Nottingham would be seventh place in the Premier League, which are in the conference league as things are. The rival of Palace Brighton, who missed Europe after eighth place, would then move into the conference league.
A solution could be that Textor places a club into a blind trust for a year, which means that all participation or “influence” and enables both Palace and Lyon as planned to compete in the Europa League.
Evangelo’s Marinakis has already placed Wald into blind trust to comply with the UEFA rules because he is the controlling shareholder of both the forest and the Greek champion Olympiaco, both of which will be in Europe next season.
