Right-thinking football fans should hope CAS saves tiny Drogheda United from UEFA’s clutches

It will be a nervous morning on the banks of the Boyne as club officials at Irish Premier Division side Drogheda United await word from a Swiss courtroom on the fate of their European football season.

The club confirmed last week it was facing expulsion from the UEFA Conference League owing to the late qualification of Danish club Silkeborg IF to the same competition. Silkeborg are owned by Drogheda United’s owners Trivela Group and UEFA rules state that only one club from a so-called ‘multi-club ownership’ group (MCO) can qualify for any UEFA competition. And as Drogheda United finished lower in their respective league table, they are the ones to miss out.

If confirmed, the expulsion of Drogheda United would be the first time UEFA has ever enforced its rules on MCOs. Previous years have seen Aston Villa, Manchester United, and Manchester City’s MCOs escape sanction for having two clubs in the same competition, thanks to various rejiggings of their ownership structures ahead of the start of competition. 

This year, however, UEFA advanced their deadline for what it calls an ‘assessment’ of MCOs into mid-season, in order, it says, to give more time for officials to assess the various fixes being proposed by the clubs to avoid a conflict of interest and maintain ‘sporting integrity’. 

But unlike previous seasons, UEFA this year appears unwilling to show any flexibility with respect to fixes being implemented beyond their assessment deadline. This rigidity is new, and appears to have caught tiny Drogheda United out. Whereas Aston Villa, for example, was allowed to announce a solution to the MCO headache in July of 2023 (following a June 2023 assessment ‘deadline’), a club statement suggests UEFA was unwilling to listen to Drogheda United’s proposed fixes.

“We have been in active dialogue with UEFA for months and have put forward a share disposition, trust arrangements, and various other undertakings consistent with recent CFCB precedent,” Drogheda United said, “only to have all of those efforts rebuffed.”

UEFA’s militancy is hard to understand. Are officials in Nyon really afraid that Drogheda United and Silkeborg - two clubs most European football fans couldn’t locate with a map and directions - will rig the UEFA Conference League? And if ‘rules are rules’, with no flexibility for the upcoming 2025-26 competitions, why are Europa League qualifiers Crystal Palace (whose owners also own Europa League-bound French side Lyon) apparently set for a UEFA reprieve?

A media report by influential journalist Matt Lawton in the Sunday Times said that UEFA had requested more information from Crystal Palace about their owner John Textor in order to assess his level of ‘decisive influence’ at the club. But why is UEFA willing to listen to Crystal Palace after the fact, but not Drogheda United? What plans did Crystal Palace have in place ahead of the March 1 assessment deadline? A rumoured sale by Textor has very publicly fallen through - is there a back-up plan no-one but UEFA knows about? Beyond that, is Textor’s position as a board member at both Crystal Palace and Lyon not proof of ‘decisive influence’? What do UEFA think board members do, if not exert influence? 

It’s no wonder the Irish side reportedly feels hard done by. Are UEFA really so determined to prove their hardness they’re willing to go studs-up into Drogheda United, much like Irishman Roy Keane did Alfe-Inge Haaland (father of Erling) all those years ago?

UEFA’s position is understood to be that the rule changes were flagged to clubs last October, leaving enough time for clubs to achieve compliance ahead of the new mid-season assessment date. At that time, however, ownership group Trivela did not own Silkeborg. And while Trivela was multigroup in October - they also own English League Two side Walsall FC - Irish Independent columnist Dan McDonnell has reported that Drogheda United did not receive the communication sent by UEFA to other MCOs. McDonnell says other MCOs also received follow up communication from UEFA, where Drogheda United are understood to have received none, evidence of a clear double standard.

There are a number of obvious problems with UEFA’s new mid-season assessment date. For one, it forces clubs to take mitigation measures like share dispositions and blind trusts based on hypothetical scenarios. How can clubs know if they have a problem when most leagues don’t determine their European positions until May or, in Silkeborg’s case, June? And then there is the scenario in which a club is acquired by an MCO in mid-season, as Silkeborg was this year. Was Trivela really supposed to close a sale just before Christmas, engage with UEFA  early in the new year (and presumably for the first time ever, as Walsall’s chances of European qualification are infinitesimal), and come up with a complex restructuring solution to present to UEFA by the end of February? All when UEFA’s new public guidance on MCOs was only revealed on February 26, i.e. two days before their new compliance date? That’s harsh, by any standard. Especially if Trivela are willing to make similar arrangements to those that have won UEFA approval in the past.

To be sure, any regulator must occasionally shoot one of its charges, pour ne pas encourager les autres. But the fact that UEFA is seemingly hell-bent to make an example of Drogheda United is both baffling and unnecessarily punitive, especially when other, bigger groups are by all appearances being held to a different standard. Where is the common sense? What problem is UEFA really solving here?

No matter which way it goes in court, it’s clear that UEFA’s rules will need another scrub. And in the meantime, football fans everywhere should hope that the Court for Arbitration for Sport saves UEFA from committing a serious error. A small club on the banks of the Boyne isn’t the problem. 

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