Why are Forest set to take Palace’s place in Europa League?
Crystal Palace had never won a major trophy.
Never been in Europe.
The scenes of pure joy after their 1-0 win over Manchester City at Wembley made for one of 2025’s most memorable football stories.
They believe they earned their right to play in the Europa League next season. According to well-placed sources, there are factions at Uefa who have a similar opinion.
But less than two months on, the aftermath has been tainted by acrimony, rivalries and, ultimately, Uefa rules around multi-club ownership rules.
The upshot is Palace are out of the Europa League. And Nottingham Forest take their place. Palace are now in the Conference League where the prize money and glory are significantly less.
Palace are now expected to take their case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Why did this happen? What does it tell us about football ownership? What went on between Palace and Forest? And will it spark a deeper rivalry between the clubs?
Palace and the missed March deadline
Lyon fans have held protests against Textor’s ownership
There are two crucial points to consider when trying to understand how Palace have come to lose their place in the Europa League.
The first is Palace’s argument that John Textor, who owns stakes in them and in Lyon, does not hold decisive control at Selhurst Park.
In their dealings with Uefa, Palace have strenuously insisted that Textor, despite his company – Eagle Football Holdings – possessing a 43% stake, has no significant influence at the club.
Speaking to Talksport earlier this week, Textor said: “I don’t have decisive influence. I don’t and I didn’t.”
Textor is at the centre of the case. Uefa has deemed that Lyon and Palace can’t both play in next season’s Europa League because of his part-ownership of both. And so as the French club finished higher in their league, they get the spot.
The other important point to consider is that Palace missed Uefa’s 1 March deadline to alter their ownership structure to ensure compliance with the governing body’s multi-club ownership rules.
In essence, that is why the south London club are in this predicament.
Forest, too, missed the cut-off but they had demonstrated to Uefa that they were in the process of complying with their rules. The issue for them was that Evangelos Marinakis also owns Olympiakos, who were were in line to qualify for next season’s Champions League. So Marinakis placed his Forest stake into a blind trust, and ceased to be a “person with significant control” of the company that owns the club. In the end, Olympiakos qualified, Forest didn’t.
Had Palace successfully convinced Uefa that Textor had no decisive control then the 1 March deadline would have been irrelevant.
But Uefa have not accepted Palace’s argument – and missing the deadline has become the club’s downfall.
Forest lobbied for Palace’s demotion
Forest are set to be the big beneficiaries of Palace’s defeat. Indeed, there are some questions behind the scenes at Palace as to Forest’s role in the saga over recent weeks.
For instance, BBC Sport has learned there was a letter sent by Forest to Uefa expressing concerns over Palace’s Europa League eligibility.
Forest will say they have complied with the rules when Palace haven’t and thus deserve their place in the Europa League. It is a strong argument.
Marinakis didn’t want to place his ownership of the club into a blind trust, but he did because he knew of the potential consequences if he didn’t.
Could we be looking at the start of one of English football’s most unlikely rivalries?
The move to sell Textor’s Palace stake
Textor put further distance between himself and Palace towards the end of last month after agreeing a near-£190m deal to sell his stake to fellow American businessman Woody Johnson.
The deal strengthened Palace’s assertions that there has never been any collusion with Lyon.
At the time, the deal appeared a significant development towards Palace maintaining their place in the Europa League.
Yet there was an acceptance at Palace that while Uefa may look favourably on Textor’s exit, it wasn’t going to be enough on its own.
Their hopes rested on Uefa deciding that Textor hasn’t held significant control at the club.
Palace fears grew the longer they waited. They felt that if Uefa agreed with the club’s argument, the good news would have been communicated before now.
Their pessimism was clearly warranted.
The Lyon complication that did not save Palace
Palace were given hope when Lyon were relegated from Ligue 1 in late June because of their poor financial state.
The demotion, had it stood, would have meant Lyon not longer held a licence to compete in the Europa League – opening the door to Palace.
But Palace optimism subsided as Lyon lodged an appeal against the decision with France’s football watchdog.
Once the appeal was submitted, Palace began fearing the worst amid scepticism as to whether there was a will in France to forcibly remove one their most prestigious clubs from the top flight given uncertainty over television revenue.
There were reports in May that sports broadcaster DAZN terminated its five-year domestic broadcast contract with France’s Professional Football League (LFP) for Ligue 1 after just one season.
DAZN paid a reported 400m euros for the domestic rights over five years. In contrast, in 2023, the Premier League received £6.7bn for a four-year contract – which starts next season – for Sky and TNT to show up to 270 live games a season.
There was a resultant concern that relegating Lyon would put Ligue 1 at disadvantage in terms of its global pull.
On Wednesday, the French football authorities upheld Lyon’s appeal and thus preserved their place in the Europa League.
Ever since then, the writing has been on the wall for Palace.
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