Exclusive: Crystal Palace in Europa League crisis thanks to John Textor oversight
Crystal Palace could be set to miss out on playing in the Europa League next season thanks to an oversight from the club’s part-owner, according to Dan Plumley.
The football finance expert exclusively revealed to Football Insider that John Textor had the opportunity to put his shares into a blind trust, but missed the deadline to do so.
Palace’s slow start to the season, after losing star man Michael Olise to Bayern Munich, meant that their hopes of qualifying for Europe were effectively over before they had even begun.
The Eagles failed to win in any of their first nine games of the season, and despite a mid-season fightback, failed to make up the ground to the strong mid-table pack of Brighton, Brentford, Bournemouth, and Fulham.
However, a stunning upset of heavy favourites Man City in the FA Cup final gave Palace their first major piece of silverware, and with it the honour of competing in the Europa League for the first time in the club’s history.
Or so it seemed. As it turns out, Textor’s majority shareholding in the South London club and French side Lyon, who also qualified for Europe’s second-tier competition, means that Oliver Glasner‘s side face being excluded from competing.
This is due to UEFA’s rules on multi-club ownership, and to make things worse, the American businessman had the opportunity to fix the problem before it became an issue, but failed to do so.
Textor missed March deadline to put Palace shares in blind trust
Speaking exclusively to Football Insider, finance expert Plumley explained that Textor had the opportunity to put his Palace shares in a blind trust earlier in the season.
Nottingham Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis, who also owns Greek side Olympiacos, did so thanks to his side’s position in the table suggesting Europe was on the cards, but with the Eagles nowhere near the qualification spots in the Premier League, the American shareholder chose not to, apparently not expecting the eventual FA Cup triumph.
The deadline for Textor to move his shares was 1 March, but with the deadline having been and gone, Palace now look set to lose their Europa League place.
Plumley said: “He [Textor] could have done exactly what the Forest owner [Marinakis] did and moved the club into a blind trust.
“There was a deadline issue that was the problem, so UEFA moved that deadline forward.
“He could have done exactly what Nottingham Forest did; he just had to do it by the first of March, and then this wouldn’t really be an issue, as we’ve seen with Forest.
“They could have done that, but they didn’t, and that was due to the timing of the deadline and where Palace were in the competition, because they weren’t going to get that [European] place through the league, it was only going to be through the FA Cup.
“So there’s a reason why they didn’t do that, and hindsight is a wonderful thing.”
Bayern Munich eyeing move for Eberechi Eze amid European mess
Mick Brown revealed to Football Insider that Bayern Munich are looking at Eberechi Eze, thanks to Olise’s success in Germany.
The England international is heavily in demand this summer, but has not shown any signs of pushing for a move away from Selhurst Park.
But that could change if Palace are dumped out of competing in the Europa League next season.
Eze will be keen to compete at a high level, and with the World Cup in North America on the horizon, the 26-year-old’s place in Thomas Tuchel‘s squad may be in jeopardy if he is not competing in Europe next season.