Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) rejects Crystal Palace's appeal, upholding UEFA's original ruling to relegate the club to the Europa Conference League..
2025-08-12 09:44
Sky Sports reported on Monday that the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has rejected Crystal Palace's appeal, upholding UEFA's original ruling to relegate the club to the Europa Conference League for the new season.
According to reports, the appeal hearing began on August 8th at CAS headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland.
At the hearing, CAS stated that UEFA's regulations are clear and can be easily understood, and that leniency is not granted to clubs that fail to comply with them. Furthermore, Crystal Palace had violated the Multi-Club Ownership (MCO) rules before the assessment deadline.
Although former American co-shareholder John Textor had recently sold his Crystal Palace shares to Wendy Johnson, owner of the American NFL team New York Jets, he remained a co-shareholder at the time of the assessment.
Concurrently, Textor was also still Lyon's largest shareholder at the time and held considerable influence on the boards of both clubs. Therefore, the CAS rejected the Eagles' appeal.
CAS also refuted Crystal Palace Chairman Steve Parish's accusation that UEFA favoured Lyon and Nottingham Forest, which benefited from the escalation of the dispute to be promoted the Europa League, despite the latter also violated the MCO Rules.
CAS considered Parish's accusation unfair and reiterated that the hearing committee had examined the case impartially and was willing to listen to arguments from all sides, and that no bias was cast on either Lyon or Nottingham Forest.
Finally, the report also indicated that Crystal Palace, dissatisfied with the ruling, had decided to take the case to the Swiss Federal Tribunal again.
With the dismissal of their appeal, UEFA's decision to relegate Crystal Palace to the Europa Conference League for the 2025/26 season is now final.
The defending FA Cup and Community Shield champions will begin their Europa Conference League campaign next Thursday, August 21st.
The Premier League club will then face the winner of the qualifiers between Midtjylland and Fredrikstad to qualify for the league stage.
Regardless, The Athletic predicts that Crystal Palace's summer transfer budget will be significantly impacted by their failure to successfully appeal to retain their Europa League qualification. Conversely, Forest's transfer budget will be significantly increased.
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