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Crystal Palace have been banned from the Europa League and will play in the Conference League next season after UEFA concluded that the FA Cup winners had breached multi-club ownership rules.
The FA Cup winners, who have never played in a major European competition before, will appeal the decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. Nottingham Forest are set to take Crystal Palace's place in the Europa League, but UEFA will wait for any legal proceedings to be concluded before making an official announcement.
The ban was expected after Lyon won their appeal against relegation to Ligue 2 and the French team's return to the Europa League. Clubs with the same owner are banned from competing in the same UEFA competition if an individual or ownership group is deemed to have influence over more than one of those teams.
John Textor is Crystal Palace's largest shareholder and the owner of Lyon. A March 1 deadline to resolve ownership issues at many clubs was missed and although Textor recently agreed a deal to sell his stake in the English team to American billionaire Woody Johnson, the move has not been completed and was seen as coming too late.
UEFA said in a statement that its club financial control body had concluded that the ownership criteria of many clubs had been breached and had decided "to refuse Crystal Palace's admission to the Europa League for the 2025-2026 season and to relegate the English team to the Conference League."
Lyon qualified for the Europa League by finishing sixth in the French championship and had agreed with UEFA that they would be excluded from its European competitions if their relegation, imposed for financial reasons, was not overturned.
Tekstor resigned from his leadership positions at Lyon this month, including from the board, and Michel Kang was appointed president and chairman.
Crystal Palace's four co-owners - Tekstor, Steve Parish, Josh Harris and David Blitzer - were part of a club delegation that attended a meeting at UEFA headquarters in Nyon and argued that Tekstor did not have a decisive influence at Selhurst Park.
However, this did not convince UEFA and the governing body rejected an attempt by Tekstor and Blicer to place their shares in a blind trust because they had missed the March deadline. The use of a blind trust enabled other clubs with the same owners to play together in a UEFA competition.
On Thursday, Tekstor told TalkSport: " Why should I turn my interest over to a trust before March when the rule says you only have to do it if you have decisive influence? I don't ."/ " The Guardian ", adapted into Albanian "Pamphlet"
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