From the erudite Henry Winter :
"Where Eagles despair. John Textor is the culpable one here, not Uefa’s rule-book and the European governing body being sticklers for regulations and deadlines. So no surprise that Crystal Palace failed in their attempt to persuade CAS to overturn Uefa decision to demote them to Europa Conference League for breaching multi-club ownership regs. Textor needed to divest himself of stake earlier. “After considering the evidence, the Panel found that John Textor, founder of Eagle Football Holdings,had shares in CPFC and OL (Lyon) and was a Board member with decisive influence over both clubs at the time of UEFA’s assessment date," CAS says. "The Panel also dismissed the argument by CPFC that they received unfair treatment in comparison to Nottingham Forest and OL. 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.” Palace will still feel aggrieved, and feeling that so-called bigger clubs would have got away with it. Palace have to use this frustration as fuel to galvanise them further, building on that defiant spirit they showed at Wembley (again), and go and embarrass Uefa by winning the Conference League in Leipzig next May. More likely to win a European trophy now. West Ham and Chelsea celebrated winning the UECL. Important time now for Steve Parish and Oliver Glasner together to rally the club - fans, staff and players - and remind everyone of the special bond they have and the special journey they are on (albeit now via Leipzig) and try to ensure they don’t lose Marc Guehi to Liverpool and/or Eberechi Eze to Arsenal, as seems possible. Time to be strong"
England
