Crystal Palace missed several emails from UEFA over rule change as Europa League row rumbles on

Steve Parish said Crystal Palace failed to see multiple UEFA notifications of a new deadline for multiclub owners to place their shares in a blind trust because they were sent to the club's general email address.

Eagles chairman Parish said the memo was not sent to any individuals at the club and he has never received a single direct message from the governing body in 15 years at Selhurst Park.

And Parish, in a long and passionate interview outlining the club's stance after being kicked out of the Europa League, believes UEFA "probably would have found a way" to accommodate a bigger club that had faced the same predicament.

But while the Palace boss appeared to blame UEFA for their poor communication - he instead indicated the club simply failed to see notifications in January.

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That is despite them being sent to the only email address Palace list in the Premier League handbook that is circulated to stakeholders at the start of every season.

"I do think we're not in UEFA's orbit, there isn't a group that represents clubs like us at UEFA,” Parish told Sky Sports.

“In 15 years I've never had an email from UEFA, not one. They sent a notification that this rule change was coming to info@cpfc.co.uk. Nobody saw it so they kept sending it again and again and again. This was in January.

“Notwithstanding the fact that even if I'd received it, what could I have done? I couldn't make somebody do it. They passed this rule so there was nothing we could do.

“They passed the rule to solve a problem that was caused by other clubs in other seasons and we've just got inadvertently caught up in it.

“Maybe they are getting pressure from other clubs, we've been led to believe. I don't know, that's what we've been told, and for some reason they can't seem to find a way out of it and I think it's just dreadful for football.”

UEFA confirmed on Friday that Palace would be demoted to the Conference League because John Textor owns a 43 per cent stake in the Eagles and is the majority owner of French club Lyon, who have also qualified for the Europa League.

The FA Cup winners argued that Textor has no “direct influence” on the club’s operations but he did miss the March 1 blind trust deadline imposed by UEFA.

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