There are two crucial points to consider when trying to understand how Palace have come to lose their place in the Europa League.
The first is Palace’s argument that John Textor, who owns stakes in them and in Lyon, does not hold decisive control at Selhurst Park.
In their dealings with Uefa, Palace have strenuously insisted that Textor, despite his company – Eagle Football Holdings – possessing a 43% stake, has no significant influence at the club.
Speaking to Talksport earlier this week, Textor said: “I don’t have decisive influence. I don’t and I didn’t.”
Textor is at the centre of the case. Uefa has deemed that Lyon and Palace can’t both play in next season’s Europa League because of his part-ownership of both. And so as the French club finished higher in their league, they get the spot.
The other important point to consider is that Palace missed Uefa’s 1 March deadline to alter their ownership structure to ensure compliance with the governing body’s multi-club ownership rules.
In essence, that is why the south London club are in this predicament.
Forest, too, missed the cut-off but they had demonstrated to Uefa that they were in the process of complying with their rules. The issue for them was that Evangelos Marinakis also owns Olympiakos, who were were in line to qualify for next season’s Champions League. So Marinakis placed his Forest stake into a blind trust, and ceased to be a “person with significant control” of the company that owns the club. In the end, Olympiakos qualified, Forest didn’t.
Had Palace successfully convinced Uefa that Textor had no decisive control then the 1 March deadline would have been irrelevant.
But Uefa have not accepted Palace’s argument – and missing the deadline has become the club’s downfall.
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