Palace Appeals to CAS for Europa League: Final Decision on August 11

Crystal Palace Appeals to CAS for Europa League Exclusion

The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has confirmed that Crystal Palace has filed an appeal after being excluded from the Europa League. An expedited decision is expected, which will be communicated on Monday, August 11th, or before. The Palace qualified for the Europa League after defeating Manchester City in the FA Cup final. However, Paris Saint-Germain’s victory in the Coupe de France final meant that Lyon moved up from the Conference League to also play in the Europa League. The UEFA Club Financial Control Body (CFCB) ruled that the Premier League club was too closely linked to Lyon. John Textor, through Eagle Football Holdings Limited, held a majority stake in Lyon and 43.9% of Palace. The Premier League club argued that Textor had no say in the management of the clubs, but regulations regarding decisive influence prohibit any party from having more than 30% of the total stake in more than one club in the same competition.

The Multiple Club Ownership (MCO) rules state that if two clubs violate the regulation, the club finishing higher in the league will play in the European competition. Although Palace (12th) won the FA Cup and Lyon (sixth) only qualified through technicalities, the league ranking alone determined the right to play. This contradicts the competition rules for the Europa League, which prioritize the winners of the national cup over those who qualify through the league ranking. Palace’s appeal has three aspects: against the CFCB’s decision, against Nottingham Forest, and against Lyon. The Forest, who were due to enter the Conference League in the play-off round next month, will be promoted to the Europa League if Palace’s appeal to the CAS fails. In the first appeal, the Palace “seeks to annul the decision of the UEFA Club Financial Control Body of July 11, 2025, which determined that Crystal Palace and OL [Lyon] did not comply with the multi-club ownership regulations”. The Palace also “requests readmission to the UEFA Europa League 2025/2026, with Nottingham Forest’s admission rejected”. In the final appeal, Palace requested “readmission to the UEFA Europa League 2025/2026, with the admission of OL rejected”, which would mean that there would be three Premier League teams in the Europa League and no representative in the Conference League. The Palace is not guaranteed to play in the Conference League group stage, as it must play a qualifying round, while the financial rewards are much greater for playing in the Europa League. The Conference League play-off round draw is on August 4, which means Palace, Forest, and their opponents may be waiting for the outcome of the appeal to confirm the schedule.

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Before this summer, no club had been withdrawn from European competition due to FFP rules, but Palace became the third to be affected by a stricter new application of regulations that required clubs to comply before March 1st, instead of June 3rd as in recent seasons.

The Irish club Drogheda United was excluded from the Conference League due to a conflict of ownership with the Danish club Silkeborg IF, and Győri ETO from Hungary will participate in the Conference League with FC DAC 1904 Dunajská Streda eliminated. Drogheda won the FAI Cup in November, with the Irish league operating on a calendar. It wasn’t until June 1st that Silkeborg qualified for the Conference League, three months after the new MCO deadline. Drogheda and FC DAC 1904 Dunajská Streda appealed to CAS, but lost. Both Palace and Drogheda would likely argue that it is unfair to impose such restrictions on clubs that generally have no chance of qualifying for Europe.

As the March 1 deadline approached, Palace hadn’t played their fifth-round FA Cup match. For Drogheda, who finished ninth, they already knew they had European football, but Silkeborg (seventh) didn’t expect to and claimed a European play-off in Denmark only after finishing top of the relegation group. Earlier this year, Club León was withdrawn from the FIFA Club World Cup due to an ownership conflict with its Mexican sister club, Pachuca, indicating a shift in focus by football regulators towards the MCO. Reuters information was used in this report.