There is no European match for the FA Cup championship? What s wrong with the Crystal Palace in Paris?

Sports Weekly All Media Original

Three weeks ago, the Premier League Crystal Palace made history, defeated Manchester City to win the FA Cup championship, and won the championship in an important event for the first time in 120 years of its establishment. After winning the championship, what awaits them is the first real European tournament in team history - the team has only participated in small events such as the International Toto Cup and the English-Italy Cup that have been closed. However, there are unexpected situations. Crystal Palace, which has received surprises in the domestic cup competition, is currently facing the possibility of being kicked out of the UEFA Cup or even the European Cup, and has negotiated with UEFA on this. What's going on? There are several keywords for the

event: multi-club ownership model, Lyon and Texter. Among them, Texter is the major shareholder of Crystal Palace, accounting for 43% of the shares, accounting for the largest proportion of the four bosses. At the same time, he is the owner of Ligue 1 Lyon, accounting for 88% of the club's total shares. In this way, these two teams seem to be considered teams under the rule of the same boss. Therefore, according to UEFA's regulations, Crystal Palace and Lyon cannot participate in the same European competition at the same time.

It should be noted that the troubles of Crystal Palace in front of me must be blamed for Paris Saint-Germain for being too strong. If Paris Saint-Germain won the domestic championship, the Premier League "Hawks" would not have to face the issue of ownership conflicts. In the past season, Lyon has only ranked 6th in Ligue 1. According to the most basic rules, this ranking could only be participated in the UEFA Cup. However, because Paris qualified for the Champions League and won the French Cup, the ticket to the UEFA Cup, which was originally a domestic cup champion, was postponed to the 6th place in the league.

According to UEFA regulations, when a club with conflicting ownership is shortlisted for the same event, teams with low rankings in the domestic league will be demoted to the second-level European competition. This means that Crystal Palace may be relegated to the European Cup, after all, they are only 12th in the Premier League. However, there is also a team that conflicts with the Hawks in the Euro Cup - Bronderby. This Danish League third place is not owned by Texter, but its "Global Football Holdings Company" with a 50.1% stake belongs to American businessman David Blitzer, who also has 18% of the shares in Crystal Palace.

If UEFA implements "relegation" or even "elimination" of Crystal Palace, the Premier League Nottingham Forest and Brighton will benefit. The 7th Forest will be upgraded from participating in the European Cup to the UEFA Cup, while the 8th Seagull can enter the European Cup to play in the European Cup. Of course, this is only a theoretical possibility. Judging from the previous cases of RB Leipzig and Red Bull Salzburg, Manchester City and Girona, Manchester United and Nice, UEFA's regulations are not particularly strict. As long as the relevant clubs can prove that they operate independently and have no possibility of "coordinated combat", they can be released.

Crystal Palace is currently confident that it can convince UEFA. One of the important reasons is that although Texter is the team's number one shareholder, he has no operational decision-making power. In the internal voting of the club, Texter accounts for at most 1/4, and the club's daily work is more managed by the club's chairman Parrish, who holds 10% of the shares. It is rumored that the two people have often disagreements. In addition, Crystal Palace can also adopt a similar approach to Manchester United's minority shareholder Ratcliff's approach to Nice, transferring its shares in Crystal Palace (or Lyon) into a "secret trust", that is, to be entrusted to an independent agency of a third party to temporarily give up its management rights over the club. There are also rumors that Texter is willing to sell his Crystal Palace stocks—similar news has happened several months ago, but the saying at the time was that Americans wanted to raise money to buy Everton.

It is worth mentioning that the prospects of Crystal Palace are still unclear, and Lyon is even more overwhelmed. Due to debt issues, French financial regulators made a preliminary penalty decision to "reduce conditions at the end of the season" against Lyon several months ago. If Lyon's situation does not improve and the punishment is really implemented, then Crystal Palace probably doesn't have to worry about not being able to play in the UEFA Cup - regardless of whether UEFA also punishes Lyon, the relegated team is definitely not ranked higher in the domestic league than Crystal Palace, right?

At present, UEFA has not yet expressed a public opinion on this matter, and they will not explain the situation of individual clubs until the final ruling is made. The final deadline is June 30, and Crystal Palace still needs to wait patiently.