Steve Parish, the chairman of Crystal Palace, has been to Lausanne to make the team’s case for a Europa League return.
After being demoted to the Conference League for violating the multi-club ownership (MCO) regulations set down by UEFA, the attorneys for Parish and Palace have traveled to Switzerland for their appeal before the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), which is scheduled to be heard on Friday.
After both teams qualified for the Europa League, UEFA determined that Eagle Football’s 43% ownership of Palace, through its chairman John Textor, was in conflict with Eagle’s majority stake in the French team Lyon.
Lyon was allowed admittance into UEFA’s second-tier competition while Palace was not because of Lyon’s superior domestic finish. If the CAS appeal fails, Nottingham Forest, who were promoted from the Conference League, will take their place.
Palace, which has enlisted Swiss attorneys to support their plea, is hoping to reverse the ruling, which Parish called “a terrible injustice,” on “the most ridiculous technicality you can imagine.” A judgment is scheduled for Monday.
Given that the hearing will take place over the course of a day, they will be mindful of the time constraints and only make a few key points.
Among those issues will be the claim that they have received unfair treatment, which is anti-competitive considering that all clubs are required by UEFA laws to receive fair treatment.
They will also argue about the forest. Given their transfer transactions this summer in particular, Palace will argue that their rival Premier League team is essentially in an MCO with Eagle Football’s clubs.
What Palace considers to be an inconsistent application of the regulations is another area of disagreement. There are two aspects to this: the March 1 deadline for implementing adequate safeguards against a violation of MCO regulations is not being implemented uniformly.
They contend that trust documents clearly state that April 30 was the deadline for putting shares into a blind trust.
In their hearing with UEFA last month, they contended that they do not think Textor, who has since sold his Eagle’s Palace stake to Woody Johnson of the New York Jets, had decisive influence and that it would not have been possible to place shares into a blind trust when he was actively trying to sell them. Instead, they are contesting the rules’ inconsistency.
Emails, according to the second line of the inconsistency argument, demonstrate that clubs that were members of the European Club Association (ECA) were able to be guided through the procedure of avoiding a violation of MCO regulations.
Palace is hoping that these arguments will be enough to persuade the three-member CAS panel to let them participate in the competition for which they were eligible after winning the FA Cup in May.
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