The China Mail - Glasner says demotion to Conference League would punish 'innocent' Palace

London club Palace qualified for the Europa League, by winning last season's English FA Cup.

But the Eagles fell foul of UEFA rules governing multi-club ownership.

European football's governing body determined that as of March 1, American businessman John Textor had control or influence at Palace and French club Lyon.

Under UEFA rules Palace are unable to compete in the same European competition and Lyon held on to the Europa League spot by virtue of their higher league position.

Palace, however, appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, with club chairman Steve Parish appearing at a hearing on Friday and a verdict expected Monday.

As Parish was speaking in Lausanne, Eagles manager Glasner was addressing reporters in London ahead of Sunday's Community Shield, the traditional curtain-raiser to the English season, between the reigning Premier League champions, Liverpool, and FA Cup-holders, Palace, at Wembley.

"If you get punished when you feel innocent it's tough," said Glasner.

"And it feels like this. If we play Conference League it feels like we are punished, but being innocent. On the other side, if we had ended the season on position seven and go straight into the Conference League, we all would have celebrated.

"So these are the two feelings we have. But again, if you haven't done something wrong and you feel punished, you never feel good. So I think it's all of us, it's the same, and this is how we feel, or how we felt about the UEFA decision."

Textor sold his stake in Palace to New York Jets owner Woody Johnson, a deal completed in late July.

Glasner is adamant the row over which European competition Palace should play in has not distracted the team ahead of their Wembley showdown with Liverpool.

"No, not at all," said the Austrian. "The first meeting we had after, when we met, it was just mentioned once. One slogan for us is 'we want to focus on the things we can influence', and so we can't influence the decision of UEFA, we have no influence on the decision of CAS.

"So it just makes no sense, and the players really did very well the whole pre-season and training, worked very hard. We said, OK, on the 11th of August we will get the final verdict, and we will accept it, so it's the only thing we can do."

G.Tsang--ThChM