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Crystal Palace chairman Steve Parish has arrived in Lausanne to present the club’s case for reinstatement to the Europa League.
Parish and Palace’s lawyers have headed to Switzerland for their appeal with the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) which will be heard on Friday, after they were demoted to the Conference League for breaching European football governing body UEFA’s multi-club ownership (MCO) rules.
UEFA deemed the 43 per cent stake that Eagle Football, via its chairman John Textor, owned in Palace to be in conflict with Eagle’s majority stake in French side Lyon after both clubs qualified for the Europa League.
“I’m always positive,” said Palace boss Oliver Glasner at a press conference on Friday afternoon. “I can’t see anything why we would should be demoted and why we should stay in the Conference League. I know how the club works and it is just the chairman and the people who work here daily that take the decisions.”
Due to Lyon’s higher domestic finish, they were permitted entry to UEFA’s second tier competition and Palace denied. Nottingham Forest will take their place if the CAS appeal is unsuccessful, having been promoted from the Conference League.
A decision is due to be made on Monday, with Palace, who have hired Swiss lawyers to help their case, hopeful that they can overturn the decision which Parish described as “a terrible injustice” based on “the most ridiculous technicality you can imagine”.
“Given where we are it’s hard to be confident because it seems dystopian to be in this situation,” the club chairman said to Sky Sports later on Friday. “Hopefully good sense will prevail and we’ll get to the right answer.
“Palace fans have been brilliant. It’s been a difficult summer for everyone following an amazing triumph (by winning the FA Cup). We’re looking forward to the season. We’ve got the Community Shield on Sunday.
“Whatever happens we’re going to be playing in Europe for the first time in our history. It’ll be good to get this behind us and focus on the future.”
They will present a small number of main arguments, conscious of the time restraints given that the hearing will take place over the course of a day. Those points will include the argument that they have been treated unfairly, which is anti-competitive given that UEFA regulations state that all clubs should be treated fairly.
Forest, too, will come into their arguments. Palace will make the claim that their fellow Premier League side are effectively in an MCO with Eagle Football’s clubs, given their transfer dealings this summer in particular.
A further point of contention is what Palace believe is an inconsistency in the application of the rules. This has two strands to it, with the deadline of March 1 to put in place sufficient measures to avoid a breach of MCO rules not being applied evenly. They argue that trust documents make it clear the deadline for putting shares into a blind trust was actually April 30.
Palace argued in their hearing with UEFA last month, as they will at CAS, that Textor, who has now sold Eagle’s Palace stake to New York Jets owner Woody Johnson, did not have decisive influence and putting shares into a blind trust when he was actively trying to sell them would not have been possible. It is the inconsistency in the rules that they are challenging.
The second strand of the inconsistency argument is their belief that emails show that clubs which belonged to the European Club Association (ECA) were able to be walked through the process of avoiding a breach of MCO rules.
Palace will hope that these arguments are sufficient to sway the three-person panel at CAS and allow them to enter the competition for which they qualified by winning the FA Cup in May.
(Photo: GLYN KIRK/AFP via Getty Images)