These are heady days for Crystal Palace.
FA Cup and Community Shield holders, fourth in the Premier League after yesterday’s 2-1 win at Fulham, and competing in a major European competition for the first time. All with an ambitious manager in Oliver Glasner and a squad blessed with several highly coveted talents.
Yet, for all that, there still seems to be a niggling frustration at Palace’s progress, a feeling that the club could go further and faster, and a fear that they could fail to capitalise on an opportunity to build on this unparalleled success.
That feeling is partly being fuelled by Glasner himself, who said after a 2-1 defeat by Manchester United last week that he did not feel the club had backed him sufficiently in the summer transfer window. With his contract up at the end of this season, there is doubt over his future.
For chairman Steve Parish, however, this is a time for optimism. “It’s a great time to be a Palace fan,” he says, reflecting on the club’s journey since he and a consortium brought the club out of administration in the Championship in 2010. “The club is in the best place it’s ever been in every single metric you can look at.
“A good aim for those clubs who probably aren’t going to win the league, aiming to win a cup, play in Europe and maybe win a European competition suddenly makes sense rather than just staying in the Premier League.”
As he sits down for an in-depth interview in his office at the club’s redeveloped £30million ($40m) academy, Parish tells The Athletic:
- Glasner’s comments about spending were not “helpful”, but he has not given up hope of him signing a new deal
- Why the club were restrained in their summer spending despite selling Eberechi Eze to Arsenal for £60m
- His interest in potentially buying a second club to form a multi-club group
- Why he is critical of the Premier League’s new squad cost ratio rules, which he claims throttle ambition
- His desire for Palace to become a “destination for players” and wanting to enhance the club’s recruitment department
Glasner’s future and transfer spending
The Palace manager has yet to commit to a new deal and has given what he says is advice on what the club needs to progress.
That absence of a new deal was thrust into the spotlight further after Glasner’s comments about the summer window last week, and history may be repeating itself for a manager who also grew frustrated at Eintracht Frankfurt after winning the Europa League in 2022.
Palace signed only four outfield players in Yeremy Pino, Jaydee Canvot, Borna Sosa and Christantus Uche late in the window, despite Glasner’s call for earlier arrivals, and has since said that he wanted the club to spend the same amount that they had earned from sales.
Parish acknowledges that things could have been different.
“It’s nothing I didn’t think about or know,” he says, when asked for his reaction to Glasner’s criticisms. “That’s how he felt at the time, and he’s perfectly entitled to say it. I don’t know that it’s always the most helpful thing because we have to stay positive, but 99 per cent of the time he does. It’s not a problem. If he didn’t say it, other people would.
Oliver Glasner wanted more backing in the summer (Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)
“I’m not going to police what the manager says, he’s a great guy and we get on great. It’s not going to change things in any meaningful way, but it also doesn’t mean he’s wrong.”
So with all the success under the 51-year-old since he joined in February last year, and a desire from the club to keep him, why has he not signed a new contract?
“We’re in the muck and bullets of the season,” Parish says. “It’s a difficult time to sit down and talk about these things, but also there’s no doubt that I’m sure he wants to see if it’s a place he wants to be at and if the circumstances are right for him.
“We are building a club which I believe is going to be institutionally capable of taking care of itself. We have to keep raising our ambition every year. I’d love that to be with Oliver, but he’s going to make the best decision for him.
“It isn’t always about what I can do. People can rest assured it isn’t going to be about money (for Glasner’s salary) or a desire on anyone’s part — everyone would love Oliver to stay at the club. The club will do everything within reason to achieve that.
“I know people want him to stay desperately and I want him to stay desperately. We hope we get the outcome we want, but we plan for everything else as well.”
Parish also feels that it is too simplistic to just add up the money made from outgoings in a single window and reinvest it.
“It really doesn’t work like that. Headline numbers aren’t the numbers; you have sell-ons and other costs and have to look throughout the year. We bought Romain Esse in January (for £12m) and didn’t sell anybody, so I don’t think that’s the case (that Palace are net profit in transfers).
“It wouldn’t really matter to me whether we’d made a transfer loss. It depends on what you want to do. Within reason, we want to try to do as well as we can this season.”
Parish is aware that there could well be more departures next summer. Marc Guehi is out of contract, having almost joined Liverpool in September, and Adam Wharton, Jean-Philippe Mateta, and Daniel Munoz all have admirers.
“We’ve got one eye on players who we might have to replace in summer,” Parish admits. “We’re not going to throw it all on red and have a massive problem. Unless you want to be in a situation where you’re constantly putting in money every year, there’s a cash limit to what you can spend.
“You can’t spend money you don’t have. You have to have some guardrails as a club, or you’ll build up big problems down the track.
“Everyone saw where prices went in the summer; it’s a difficult landscape. There wasn’t the right thing available at the right time when the finances were in place. There’s no point in doing something for the sake of it.
“How are you going to get someone to come and tell them they are No 1 in Ebs’ (Eze) position if you still have him. The one where we didn’t, with Marc (Guehi), we kept him.
Eberechi Eze joined Arsenal in the summer (Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)
“You can’t always make happen what you want to. We are where we are in the pecking order; you could ask why other clubs make bids for our players two weeks before the end of the window. I don’t know why they did that.”
The sporting director Dougie Freedman left in March after eight years in the role, replaced by Matt Hobbs, who held the role with Wolverhampton Wanderers, albeit on a short-term contract. Although that successful relationship will be missed, it represents an opportunity to do things differently.
“We’re looking to bring someone else in,” Parish says. “I don’t think it’s a one-person job anymore. I’m really enjoying working with (Matt). It’s a really good start to the post-Dougie era, a good portent, it’s going in the right direction.”
Palace’s ownership, Woody Johnson, and MCOs
Parish is 15 years into his tenure as Palace chairman and believes the club is in safe hands with his fellow general partners, U.S. businessmen Josh Harris and David Blitzer, whom he considers friends.
Since the summer, that group has also included the New York Jets owner Woody Johnson, who bought the stake previously owned by John Textor as a fourth partner.
It did not happen quickly enough to prevent Palace from being denied entry to the Europa League, for which they qualified through their FA Cup victory, due to a multi-club conflict with French side Lyon, who were owned by the Eagle Football multi-club vehicle in which Textor was a part.
Parish remains steadfast in his belief that Palace were hard done by in their demotion to the Conference League and that they did not really operate within a multi-club system.
But he senses more clubs will look to that model as a result of the new squad cost ratio rules — more of which later — suggesting that Palace, too, may consider it.
“This (the SCR rules) is going to drive people to multi-club ownership (MCO). If you have one ecosystem that has to adhere to desperately difficult rules, why wouldn’t you go and get another club that lives in an ecosystem that doesn’t have any rules?
“We may look at getting a second club with these rules. It’s something that probably we’re going to have to do.”
For all the frustration of Palace’s UEFA case — which they unsuccessfully appealed at the Court of Arbitration for Sport — Parish believes the club are better placed now.
“The No 1 thing in the summer with Woody, Josh, David and me is that this club is going to be OK,” he says. “It’s the first time in its history it’s had that kind of capital base of owners — people who are prepared to invest in infrastructure.
“Woody has been absolutely fabulous since he’s come in. The speed he did everything in the summer was unbelievable. He flies over for a day to watch a game. He wants to invest in the team and in the stadium and in the players. He loves watching us do well.
“Anyone who thinks this is not a positive thing for the club after the ownership we’ve been through at this club over the years is mad.”
Woody Johnson invested in Palace in the summer (Ishika Samant/Getty Images)
Yet there have been questions about how Palace can have three billionaires on their board and not spend more in the transfer window. How does he respond to those claims?
“How much money do you think they should spend every year without any prospect of seeing it again?” he asks. “I put £5m into the club last year. How much money should I put in every year without a prospect of seeing it again?
“It’s not really a rational pursuit and everybody accepts that. But there’s a point at which you always want to be able to do it out of the resources of the club first. If you keep taking money, you become dependent on it.
“We’ve got these amazing media revenues (in the Premier League), but do we have them forever? At the moment, we’re 75 per cent media revenue. Is that healthy for the club? I don’t think it is.
“If we were to take our revenues — around £44m of ticket income and commercial, outside of the media money — to, on a gross level, the £75m range with the new Main Stand and new sponsorship we bring in. That’s a massive increase in the club’s turnover.
“We want to set our sights higher. How can we do that and build the infrastructure at the same time? How can I make sure everyone is on a journey with me and doesn’t feel like all I do is ring them up for money when something goes wrong?
“We do that by restraining some things. We have to be smarter than the opposition or take a risk they don’t take. Maybe sometimes it’s (using) a slightly smaller squad.”
The impact of new Premier League spending rules
Next season, the Premier League will introduce squad cost ratio rules to replace the existing profit and sustainability rules (PSR), a decision Palace voted against and Parish struggles to understand.
“I don’t know what was wrong with the league; that was our argument. What don’t you like about it? Why do you want just our group (of mid-table, aspirational clubs) to be able to spend less money?
“I hope we can get some amendments to it. Perhaps the most egregious thing is that even if you want to invest, you have to pay a fine to other clubs, and they will go to the big clubs.”
Parish — who has emerged as the de facto spokesman of the Premier League clubs outside the established ‘Big Six’ since Palace’s promotion in 2013 — is concerned that the effect of the new regulations will be to effectively smother the ambitions of clubs of Palace’s standing.
“With these new rules, selling is going to become a massive thing,” he adds. “Football should be worried that these clubs — Brentford, Brighton, Bournemouth, Fulham, plus Leeds and Nottingham Forest, probably the most aspirational clubs in the country — think something isn’t good for football.
“I predict that the people who moaned about PSR… you wait until you hear the moaning against this. You won’t be able to invest the money up front that you used to be able to.
“If there’s one spin on these new rules, it’s designed to encourage people to invest to increase their turnover. I don’t think that’s fair because not all clubs can. We’re lucky we’re in London. If we build a bigger stadium with more hospitality, we’ll likely sell it out. That isn’t the case for every other club.”
The redevelopment of Selhurst Park
It is eight years since Palace were first granted planning permission in principle by Croydon Council to redevelop their stadium, rebuilding the now-100-year-old Main Stand, and it was due to be completed by 2021.
Preliminary work commenced last summer, but Parish says supporters will see more visible work commencing in the new year.
“It’s no secret that not everyone wanted to do it, so we had some funding issues,” Parish said, in reference to Textor. “Then the costs got out of control and now we have managed to get them back under control. We had massive inflation in the market.
“We’re trying to develop all areas of the club. We’re not a sovereign state; this is people’s money. It has to make some kind of rational sense to do it. If you look at the round of what we’re achieving as a club, facilities, the stadium will start in January, with people seeing holes dug in the ground, it is a lot.
Selhurst Park is due an upgrade (Richard Pelham/Getty Images)
“If anyone thinks we should just do one or the other (invest in either the squad or the infrastructure), they are wrong. We need to develop all elements of the club and be a destination for players, not somewhere some players see as a stepping stone.”
In that waiting period, the academy building has been transformed into a world-class facility also used by the first team, and their newly built final phase encompasses a hydrotherapy centre, which will boast a hyperbaric oxygen therapy and hypoxia chamber to enhance recovery by replicating high altitude and low oxygen environments respectively.
Parish’s own future
It would be easy to suggest that Parish wants his legacy to be the redeveloped stadium, but while that remains his ambition, he wants to stress that his work at Palace is not about him.
“The first job I had when I came in, and it still exists, is to make sure this club is here for as long as possible, providing joy for everyone in the community,” he says.
“I’m 60 years old. I love the club. I’m the same as Oliver; I don’t want to be here treading water. We have to be going somewhere.
“I’m happy doing it. We have the right group of people around us to do it. I’m not going to do it forever. At some point, we’ll have to think about what that looks like. I’ve always said I want to build a stand and leave the club on really solid ground. Feeling like it’s a Premier League club forever, challenging for Europe.
Parish shows off the FA Cup Palace won in May (Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)
“Some days the pressure is…” He trails off. “Football never leaves you; it’s always on. But the good times outweigh the bad times.”
Among the other Palace-related memorabilia in his office is a framed squad photo from a 1-0 win at Newcastle United in April 2019, which took them to 39 points and effectively guaranteed Premier League survival. A shield from winning the Premier League Asia Trophy in 2017 sits there, too.
He will never lose sight of those achievements, but now the club’s sights are set higher — much higher.