Crystal Palace chief blames Nottingham Forest for UEFA decision as bitter row heats up

Crystal Palace chairman Steve Parish claimed that Nottingham Forest are partly to blame for their demise from the Europa League as he claimed "if there wasn’t somebody that wanted to get in, there wouldn’t be a problem."

The Eagles are reeling from the decision, brought down by UEFA, to deny them the chance to play in the Europa League next term despite them winning the FA Cup. Forest have profited as a result with the club, who finished seventh in the Premier League, jumping up from the Europa Conference League.

Palace were ultimately penalised by European football’s governing body who ruled last week that Palace had breached its multi-club ownership rules, which centred around John Textor's involvement in the club given he also owns French side Lyon, who have qualified for the Europa League.

The Forest owner, Evangelos Marinakis, also owns the Greek champions Olympiakos, but he placed his shares into a blind trust to comply with the rules so that Forest were prepared if they qualified for the Champions League. UEFA later rejected Textor’s attempts to do the same after he missed the March deadline.

And the Palace chairman has been asked by Gary Lineker on The Rest is Football podcast whether Forest had played a part in the Eagles losing out and delivered a clear response.

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He said: “Yes. We were told that and I think it’s been made public. These things seem to be played out in public. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of confidentiality that comes out of certain organisations. But we’re led to believe that that’s the issue – if there wasn’t somebody that wanted to get in as a consequence, then there wouldn’t be a problem.

“People have got to look at themselves. Some people will say it’s fine, some people will say it’s not. I don’t really have control of that. I only have control of the arguments that we put forward to UEFA."

Parish insists that Palace will appeal at the Court of Arbitration for Sport and labelled the ruling as "one of the biggest injustices in football"

He had previously said "Forest are a fantastic club" but claimed: "I can't believe a football club with that story, that history, very similar to ours, would really want to be a part of taking this away from us. I really don't. A lot of Forest fans have reached out to me and said they don't want to get access to a tournament this way."

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