Steve Parish says Crystal Palace will appeal against Europa League exclusion | OneFootball

Crystal Palace will mount a legal challenge to UEFA’s decision to exclude them from next season’s Europa League, with chairman Steve Parish announcing the club will appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

The FA Cup winners have been demoted to the Conference League owing to what Europe’s governing body says is a conflict of interest regarding former director and co-owner John Textor, who also owns part of Ligue 1 side Lyon.

The American stepped away from Palace at the start of July, but the ownership issue relates to the end of last season when the club secured a first European appearance by beating Manchester City at Wembley.

UEFA’s ruling would mean Nottingham Forest, who finished seventh in the Premier League, taking Palace’s place in the Europa League.

“We are still fighting,” Parish told the The Rest is Football podcast. “There’s an appeal process, so we go to CAS which is the court for arbitration and, you know, we’re very hopeful. We think we’ve got great legal arguments.

“We don’t think this is the right decision by any means. We know unequivocally that John didn’t have decisive influence over the club.

“We know we proved that beyond all reasonable doubt because it’s a fact.”

UEFA rules say that no owner or co-owner can have a controlling interest in more than one club competing in the same European competition during the same season.

Palace’s position throughout has been that Textor, who had previously spoken publicly about his frustration over the lack of influence he was able to exert at Selhurst Park, did not have a sufficiently controlling role for the club to fall foul of the regulations.

The deadline for shareholders to divest their interest in a club, or in some other way to alter their ownership structure, in order to comply with the regulations was March 1.

Forest, who stand to gain from the ruling, were at risk of being in a similar situation but their owner Evangelos Marinakis – who also owns Greek side Olympiacos – placed his shares in a blind trust ahead of the deadline in anticipation of the club qualifying for Europe.

“We feel that there are a lot of very genuine mitigating circumstances and more than enough wriggle room to put us in the competition,” said Parish.

“It does look bad. This is the dream right? This is what keeps football alive. This is why everybody goes, because they think one day they might win a cup and they might qualify for Europe.

“These things can be defining moments for a club and completely change the course of history forever.

“Hopefully when we go to CAS we get the right answer.

“We get the written version of (the ruling) with the detail then apparently the appeal is 10 days”