According to a media report, UEFA wants to make its multi-club ownership rules more flexible. The background to this is the summer controversy surrounding Crystal Palace.
In ten days’ time, Crystal Palace will be looking to win their second game in the Conference League group stage when they host AEK Larnaca. However, there are sure to be a few fans who will be watching another game with envy: Nottingham Forest are hosting FC Porto in the Europa League, which Palace had originally qualified for, unlike Forest.
However, because the London club had violated UEFA’s multi-club ownership rules, they were relegated to the Conference League, while Nottingham will start in the more lucrative Europa League. This decision by the European football association, which was later confirmed by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), sparked numerous protests – and apparently cannot be repeated in this form.
The March deadline is to be relaxed
According to The Guardian, UEFA plans to relax its requirements. In the previous season, all clubs whose owners were also involved in another club had to take measures for temporary unbundling by March 1 in order to be able to participate in the same European cup from the summer onwards in case of doubt. Palace missed this deadline, partly because it was still some way off its surprise FA Cup triumph at the time. John Textor was still co-owner of the Eagles at the time, but also had a say at Europa League qualifiers Olympique Lyon, who were ultimately allowed to start in the Europa League due to their higher league position.
According to the report, UEFA intends to stick to the deadline in principle. Until then, however, clubs will only have to report any potential problems with the multi-club ownership rules before they are given until the beginning of June to resolve them. This was discussed last week at the meeting of the European Football Clubs (EFC), formerly ECA, in Rome.
The classic approach, which has been successfully used in the past by the owners of Manchester City and FC Girona, for example, is to transfer shares to a blind trust, even if not everyone sees this as a sensible measure to sufficiently reduce influence on two clubs and thus maintain the integrity of competition.
