Crystal Palace, take heart: Conference League offers story of English success | Conference League

It is hard to imagine Uefa will be spared the wrath of Selhurst Park when Crystal Palace begin Conference League life there on Thursday night. A red-letter event in the club’s history has been soured by their demotion from the Europa League and the sight of Norway’s cup winners, Fredrikstad, mid-table in the Eliteserien, lining up against Oliver Glasner’s players will hardly lend itself to a sense of glamour.

For all the burning sense of injustice, there is a clear upside for Palace. They will probably never have a better chance of European success if history and raw numbers are measures to go by. Any Premier League club should start as hot favourites to win the continent’s third-tier competition, such is their financial advantage over all of the contenders. That status has been justified in two of its four editions and there is inspiration to be taken from the scenes of joy when West Ham and Chelsea took the trophy home.

There is also a warning sign for the tournament itself. The Conference League was intended to provide smaller and medium-sized nations with a larger and longer dose of European football, notionally offering some of them a shot at going the distance. So the bigger picture did not look especially edifying when West Ham, who had finished 14th in the Premier League, beat Fiorentina in the 2023 final. The alarm bells rang even louder when Chelsea, at best deigning to field second-string sides for most of the competition, strolled to glory with a goal difference of 45-12.

Is the future really a carve-up between English clubs and, if so, to what extent does that matter? During discussions about the Conference League’s creation in the second half of the last decade, there was serious debate about whether teams from the “big five” countries would be invited to participate at all. It was eventually decided that excluding them would, as well as reducing the event’s sporting merit, mean turning down an obvious opportunity. For many minnows, the attention gained by drawing a giant might be genuinely transformative.

That would certainly be the case if the San Marino champions AC Virtus, an improbable presence in the playoff round, somehow defeat the Icelanders Breidablik and reach the league phase. It is partly why there were few tears at Djurgården, the eight-time Allsvenskan winners but hitherto a peripheral presence in Europe, when they were beaten 5-1 on aggregate by Chelsea in last season’s semi-finals. Getting that far and being able to host one of Europe’s celebrated names constituted a historic progression into new territory, however the result turned out. Their travelling fans had little problem enjoying a virtually dead second leg at Stamford Bridge.

Insiders at Uefa and the increasingly powerful European Club Association have little patience with any idea that the Conference League is flawed, either in concept or execution. They can point out that 29 different countries were represented in last season’s league phase, which stands in wild contrast to the 16 whose sides competed in the Champions League and 22 in the Europa League. All representatives will receive a baseline £2.7m sum and the feedback has been that clubs are content. It is a rich cross-section of interests and cultures.

The victories by Roma and Olympiakos, in 2022 and 2024 respectively, add weight to the argument that anyone bemoaning English dominance is jumping the gun. A longer-term view must be taken before discerning whether the Conference League suffers the same problems that ultimately dogged the Cup Winners’ Cup, which provided its own enjoyable ragtag group of contenders until the late 1990s. The now defunct competition’s last 11 editions were won by teams from England, Spain, Italy, Germany or France, a trend coinciding almost precisely with the Champions League’s creation and subsequent expansion.

That ultimately put paid to the Cup Winners’ Cup. The Conference League was, by contrast, created with the Champions League’s overpopulation by the richest leagues thoroughly priced in. This year its league phase will include at least seven domestic champions from last season; a more extreme scenario, depending on results in a Europa League playoff round whose losing teams will be handed a Conference League safety net, would end with up to 15 participating. That is only one champion fewer than in the Champions League itself.

Therein lies the real problem: the Conference League was formed in deference to a system that has allowed the wealthiest clubs, including the six from England who will play in the Champions League this season, to soar further away. If it solves the previous shortage of European games for clubs outside the elite, it cements the status quo and implicitly acknowledges that for most this will now be as good as things get. There is limited scope to barge into an increasingly embedded elite.

Hope bubbles up in the form of clubs such as Pafos, who stand on the verge of a debut in the Champions League proper after winning their playoff first leg at Red Star Belgrade. Exposure to last season’s Conference League did not harm the Cypriot champions in preparing for the next step. Slovan Bratislava, veterans of two Conference Leagues before reaching last year’s Champions League, offer further evidence that some form of mobility remains possible. The ultimate cost to their domestic leagues of a guaranteed £15.7m for reaching Europe’s flagship competition remains unclear.

This year’s Conference League may yet benefit from Palace’s relegation given Nottingham Forest, with whom they have swapped places, are plainly a stronger side. Perhaps Shakhtar Donetsk, Sparta Prague or Anderlecht can take advantage of the fact no one is likely to dominate to the extent Chelsea did.

As Palace shape up for a second-choice shot at glory, their fortunes may tell plenty about the wider health of football’s ecosystem.