Crystal Palace protest: Hundreds of fans march against Uefa Europa League decision

Crystal Palace supporters have staged a protest against Uefa’s decision to demote the club to the Conference League.

On Tuesday, hundreds of fans marched to Palace’s Selhurst Park ground carrying banners and chanting against European football’s governing body.

The Eagles, who qualified for the Europa League by winning the FA Cup in May – their first major trophy – were demoted to the lower tier of Uefa competition after breaching multi-club ownership rules.

American businessman John Textor owns a stake in Crystal Palace and is the majority owner of French club Lyon, who have also qualified for the Europa League.

The rules of European football’s governing body state clubs owned, to a certain threshold of influence, by the same person or entity cannot compete in the same European competition.

Uefa’s rules set a deadline of 1 March 2025 to show proof of multi-club ownership restructuring – a deadline which Palace missed.

Textor is currently in the process of selling his stake in Crystal Palace to New York Jets owner Woody Johnson.

Nottingham Forest, who finished seventh in the Premier League last season, are set to replace Palace in the Europa League.

Palace are expected to take their case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas).

“At the end of the day it’s an injustice, just by a couple of admin errors. We qualified for it,” Nick Philpot from the Red and Blue Review podcast said at the march.

“We won the cup – it should be we go into it without any question about it.

“You’re penalising the entire club and the fanbase. Why would you do that?”

Last week, Crystal Palace chairman Steve Parish called the decision “a bad day for football” and “a terrible injustice”.

“We’ve been locked out of a European competition on the most ridiculous technicality,” he said. “Supporters of all clubs should be devastated for us.”

Uefa has been approached for comment.