UEFA has announced that it has postponed its assessment of the case involving Crystal Palace and Lyon, while confirming that another club has been excluded from European competitions for breaching rules on multiple club ownership.
Crystal Palace are at risk of a potential breach of these rules, as their major shareholder, John Textor, also has control over Lyon – a club that was recently relegated to Ligue 2 in France.
Both clubs have qualified for the next edition of the Europa League, but Palace argues that Textor has no real influence on decision-making, as he holds only 25% of the voting power.
However, UEFA regulations stipulate that any party holding at least 30% of the voting power has "decisive influence" over a club.
On Monday, UEFA postponed a decision on Palace's participation in the Europa League, further clarifying the situation through an official statement:
"This postponement is linked to Olympique Lyonnais' compliance with the agreement signed with the First Chamber of Club Financial Control (CFCB), for the violation of financial viability criteria. According to the agreement, Lyon has accepted exclusion from European competitions for the 2025/26 season if the French authorities (DNCG) confirm the club's relegation to Ligue 2."
UEFA added that more details about this multiple ownership case and the agreement reached will be published later.
Meanwhile, UEFA has also confirmed that Slovak club FC DAC 1904 Dunajská Streda has been excluded from the Conference League for next season for the same reason.
The club's owner, Oszkár Világi, also owns Hungarian club FC ETO Győr, which also qualified for the same competition.
According to a UEFA statement, published by Slovak media outlet ŠPORT.sk, it states:
“Based on the assessment of the documentation submitted by the clubs, the First Club Financial Control Chamber has concluded that FC ETO Győr and FC DAC 1904 Dunajská Streda have breached the rule on multiple ownership set out in Article 5.01 of the UEFA Club Competitions Regulations on the relevant date of 1 March 2025.”
As a result, DAC 1904's scheduled opponent – the winner of the match between Urartu (Armenia) and Neman Grodno (Belarus) – has automatically advanced to the next preliminary round.
Also, earlier this month, the exclusion from Europe of Irish club Drogheda United was confirmed, after losing an appeal at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
Drogheda, who had secured qualification to the Conference League, will not be allowed to participate in the competition as they are owned by the Trivela Group, which also owns a majority stake in Danish club Silkeborg IF.
Both clubs had secured European participation by winning their respective national cups, but only Silkeborg will participate, having finished the season in seventh place in the Danish Superliga, while Drogheda finished the championship in ninth place out of ten teams in Ireland./Express newspaper/