UEFA make further move to encourage Multi Club Ownership – Laughable | OneFootball

UEFA are now further encouraging the move to more and more Multi Club Ownership.

This is the future of football, ever more clubs under the control of a decreasing number of people.

What benefit is there to football as a whole, allowing any Multi Club Ownership?

I know integrity is a dirty word these days but owning more than one club is a joke. It clearly gives so many advantages over single club ownership. The movement of players between Multi Club Ownership teams, the dubious sale prices of such players, the use of this to sign players for one club in an ownership group because another club wouldn’t be able to at that particular time…and so on.

What is even more laughable, is the ‘integrity’ of the competition when it comes to UEFA and clubs under the same ownership.

UEFA of course have ‘rules’ that mean teams with the same Multi Club Ownership can’t play in the same European competition any particular season.

UEFA of course have ‘rules’ that indeed allows this to happen.

Basically, when this looks likely to happen, the people involved in Multi Club Ownership pay for somebody to do some paperwork, set up a blind trust or whatever, then everybody pretends that these clubs aren’t controlled/owned by the same people.

Owners at the likes of Man City, Brighton, Man U and others, have done this any number of times.

Crystal Palace ran into problems this year simply because ahead of 1 March 2025 they didn’t think they would have this issue, they actually played Millwall on 1 March in the fifth round of the FA Cup, then only went on and won the whole thing!

Due to John Textor having Multi Club Ownership at both Palace and Lyon, Forest ended up with Palace’s Europa League place and Palace had to settle for Conference League. Simply because they didn’t do some paperwork in time.

Now a report from The Guardian (see below) has revealed that; ‘Under the new rules any club in contention for European qualification the following season would still be required to highlight any potential MCO issues to Uefa by 1 March, but would then be given additional time at the end of the season to resolve any problems if multiple clubs in the same ownership group have qualified for the same competition.’

UEFA bending over backwards to encourage the scourge of Multi Club Ownership even more.

So after a season has ended and clubs under the same ownership have already qualified for the same European competition. At that late point, after the fact, they just need to fill in the correct paperwork and then everybody pretends they don’t have the same owners.

Personally, I don’t see why Multi Club Ownership should be allowed at all.

However, if it is going to continue to be allowed, surely for UEFA to have any integrity, at the very least it should be the ownership of clubs when the league season kicks off, that determines whether or NOT they can play in the same European competition the following season if they qualify.

The Guardian report – 13 October 2025:

‘Uefa is planning to give clubs more time to resolve potential multi club ownership (MCO) issues next season following the controversy that led to Crystal Palace being expelled last summer from the Europa League.

In a proposed change to its regulations discussed with elite clubs at a meeting last week of the newly named European Football Clubs in Rome, Uefa is poised to relax the 1 March deadline, which Palace failed to meet last season in an oversight that led to the FA Cup winners losing their Europa League place to Nottingham Forest.

Under the new rules any club in contention for European qualification the following season would still be required to highlight any potential MCO issues to Uefa by 1 March, but would then be given additional time at the end of the season to resolve any problems if multiple clubs in the same ownership group have qualified for the same competition.

With the draws for the qualifying rounds of the Europa League and Conference League taking place in June, the final deadline for resolving any MCO clashes would be put back to the start of that month. A failure to flag any issues by March would still be deemed a breach of the rules.