Lausanne, Aug 11 A day after Crystal Palace FC (CPFC) celebrated their win in the Community Shield against Liverpool, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) dismissed the appeal by the club against UEFA, Nottingham Forest FC and Olympique Lyonnais (OL) after UEFA removed CPFC from the Europa League 2025/2026 due to a breach of UEFA multi-club ownership regulations.
As a result, CPFC will be admitted to compete in the UEFA Conference League 2025/2026. The Eagles had achieved qualification for the European tournament after winning the 2024/25 FA Cup.
"The appeal sought to annul the decision by the UEFA Club Financial Control Body on 11 July 2025, which found CPFC and OL non-compliant with multi-club ownership regulations. Alongside the annulment of the decision, CPFC requested readmission to the UEFA Europa League with Nottingham Forest or OL’s admission rejected.
"After considering the evidence, the Panel found that John Textor, founder of Eagle Football Holdings, had shares in CPFC and OL and was a Board member with decisive influence over both clubs at the time of UEFA’s assessment date.
"The Panel considered that the UEFA Regulations are clear and do not provide flexibility to clubs that are non-compliant on the assessment date, as CPFC claimed," read the statement by CAS.
Palace lifted the Community Shield after winning on penalty shootouts. The Eagles showed tremendous resiliency in fighting back after falling behind on two occasions to secure a 2-2 draw. Palace's hero from the shootout Dean Henderson stated his team deserves to play in the Europa League based on footballing merit.
"I think you will see by today, we don't take too much notice of it at the end of the day. We win the FA Cup, we are justified to be in the Europa League.
"For football purposes we deserve to be in the Europa League. I think it would devalue the competition, unfortunately, if we weren't in the Europa League," Henderson told BBC Radio 5 Live at Wembley.
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