Crystal Palace have become an easy target in a crisis of football’s own making | OneFootball

It is just another illustration of a football world that so rarely seems to make sense.

By Friday evening, John Textor had no connection to Crystal Palace, having sold his stake to Woody Johnson - subject to Premier League approval. Textor didn’t have a seat on the Lyon board, either, since he'd resigned his position at the end of June.

Despite all that, Uefa still announced that Crystal Palace were to be demoted from the Europa League to the Europa Conference League, because of the conclusion that the two clubs had breached the body’s regulations about multi-club ownership on 1 March through Textor’s stakes. Palace’s European dream at least isn’t over, and they’re in a competition they have a better chance of winning, with an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport to come. It’s all still a little hard to square. Palace co-owner Steve Parish went as far as describing it as “one of the greatest injustices” in the history of European football.

Uefa would of course point to the letter of the law, given the documents submitted to them by the necessary deadline. The precedent of Ireland’s Drogheda, thrown out of the Conference League because then Trivela Group also own Danish club Silkeborg, afforded little option. Textor - rather than Palace - was supposed to put the club in a blind trust when they were in the FA Cup fifth round, on the off-chance they might win the first trophy of their 120-year history.

And yet it is that very concept of the “letter of the law” that now provokes such questions, particularly given the confusing wider context. In April 2023, one senior football figure came out with the following: “There are clubs - or at least one - where we still pretend it’s not the same owner [as another club] but it’s the same owner, and I will not tell you which. You can guess.”

“Pretend” is quite a word to use. And this was no less an individual than the most senior figure in European football: Uefa president Aleksander Ceferin.

At that admission, the very concept of the regulation seems so nebulous, making this decision seem so pedantic. In light of that, you can see why Parish also said “what we would much prefer is if somebody intervened in this process”.

“We believe it's possible for Mr Ceferin or somebody to do that.” Uefa could similarly improve their statutes.

It is absurd enough that Nottingham Forest - who are set to swap places with Palace - have done much more recent business with Textor’s clubs. There is ample evidence that Textor had no controlling influence at the Selhurst Park club. Parish has even repeatedly denied that the American’s stake means Palace are part of a multi-club setup.

Much more pointedly, however, all of this stems from Uefa’s failure to regulate on multi-club ownership in any meaningful sense. It is just another problem in football that everyone could see coming, but where the authorities only realised the issues when it was too late.

Hence we have this, regulations that are little more than a pretence, and where such decisions allow the mere appearance of substantial governance. Parish was right to tell Sky Sports that “there’s a real crossroads for Uefa to look at”.

Even Forest are set to only be in the competition because Evangelos Marinakis placed his controlling influence in a blind trust last season. And yet, after that, we still had the sight of him on the pitch after Forest’s match against Leicester when he is neither a named owner nor director. The Football Association have not yet charged him.

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Steve Parish, Chairman of Crystal Palace, called the decision an 'injustice' (Getty Images)

That is admittedly a more parochial concern than one for Uefa, but there are wider dimensions to this, too.

Numerous senior football figures immediately compared the announcement of the Palace decision to last Friday’s ruling, which was that Chelsea, Barcelona and Aston Villa were only fined for breaking financial rules.

While the settlement agreement does mean Chelsea will have to sell to register players, we still had the curious development of the club essentially boasting about their relationship with the governing body, in what was a statement about a £27m fine.

“Chelsea FC greatly values its relationship with Uefa and considered it important to bring this matter to a swift conclusion by entering into a settlement agreement.”

While the contrast could be made with clubs who are known to have obstructed investigations, it’s still hard to see how that is relevant to a statement where they have been given a severe financial penalty.

The very wording provokes further questions about the logic of punishing a club for spending more money by asking them for more money. It is why many senior administrators abhor the very idea of financial penalties at this level.

The sanctions can become “luxury taxes”, and maybe even baked into the business plan. That’s especially the case if the cost becomes a lot less than the upside. It is certainly more valuable to Chelsea to be in the Champions League than pay £27m, which would barely cover most first-team signings.

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John Textor cut ties with Crystal Palace in an attempt to avoid punishment (Getty Images)

Other sources are more blunt about this. “They’re always brave with the smaller clubs,” one says. Against that, there are a litany of examples of the wealthiest clubs avoiding severe sanction, going right back to the start of Financial Fair Play and the settlements for Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain in 2014.

Former Uefa executive Alex Phillips even said the following for this writer’s book, ‘States of Play’:“It’s never the biggest clubs… a settlement to clubs with unlimited money is great because the only thing they fear is exclusion. The simple fact that Uefa is also the organiser of the Champions League means they have an interest in preserving teams like PSG and City.”

They make the rules, but also make the money off the competitions.

An even greater layer of complication has now been laid on that with the Club World Cup. The clubs can almost play Fifa and Uefa off against each other, given both authorities want them all in on their elite competitions. It reveals enough that some sources openly describe Real Madrid as a “Fifa-leaning club” and PSG as a “Uefa-leaning club”. At least for now.

Echoing the three decades of appeasement that ultimately led to the Super League, the authorities need the big clubs “on side”. That need is now sharpened by all manner of embittered football politics, and a cold war between Uefa and Fifa. All the while, the European Club Association is increasing its influence.

It is hard to see how a body can regulate properly in these kinds of circumstances, at the very least. It again simply raises the fundamental problem with a governing body being a regulator and competition organiser.

And it is within this mess - all manner of powerful interests, an ill-equipped regulatory system, unequal money - that Palace got to 1 March without considering that they might be in Europe for the first time in their history.

That’s just the letter of the law. And yet there’s another wrinkle, that bit lower down. Given that Palace co-owner David Blitzer also owns a stake in Brondby through his Global Football Holdings, it is apparently OK to be in a competition with the Danish club but not Lyon. Again, little enough sense.