Half of all Premier League clubs currently operate under some form of multi-club ownership arrangement. That single statistic explains why UEFA’s bureaucrats have been just as busy as the clubs themselves this spring — and why several teams could yet find their European ambitions derailed by paperwork rather than results on the pitch.
UEFA’s multi-club ownership rules : what’s actually at stake
UEFA’s position is unambiguous : sporting integrity must be “undisputable,” and two closely linked clubs cannot compete in the same European competition. The threshold that typically triggers scrutiny sits at 30% shareholding or voting rights, but ownership figures alone don’t tell the whole story. The concept of decisive influence — meaning directors, executives or staff members involved in key decisions at both clubs — carries equal weight in UEFA’s assessment.
When the Club Financial Control Body (CFCB) identifies a conflict, one club gets removed from the competition. The priority order matters here :
- The club competing in the higher-ranked European competition takes precedence
- Domestic league position serves as the second tiebreaker
- UEFA coefficient applies last — which currently favours Premier League clubs
Last season, this wasn’t just theory. Crystal Palace were demoted from the Europa League to the Conference League, while Irish side Drogheda United and Slovak club FC DAC 1904 also faced punishment. All three challenged their cases at the Court of Arbitration for Sport — and all three lost. In December 2025, UEFA reinforced the message with a fresh circular : 1 March remains a strict compliance deadline, citing those CAS rulings directly.
That circular triggered a frenzy of legal and corporate activity across multiple clubs before the end of February 2026.
Everton, Chelsea, Forest : three clubs racing against the clock
Everton’s situation may be the most compelling. The Toffees sit eleventh in the Premier League but only three points off sixth — a position that currently earns Europa League football. In Serie A, Roma are level on points with fifth-placed Como, which also carries a Europa League berth. Both clubs fall under the Friedkin Group umbrella : Everton through Roundhouse Capital Holdings, Roma through Romulus and Remus Investments. The core problem ? Dan Friedkin is simultaneously chairman of Everton and president of Roma. Everton insist they’ve found a solution, though they haven’t disclosed what it is. They’ve ruled out a blind trust — which is precisely the route Nottingham Forest appears to have taken.
Chelsea and Strasbourg represent perhaps the most visible dual-club operation in European football right now. Both sit under the BlueCo umbrella, and the connections run deep : manager Liam Rosenior moved from Strasbourg to Stamford Bridge in December 2025, and 11 players have transferred between the two clubs this season alone. BlueCo made structural changes ahead of the deadline — four board members of BlueCo Alsace stepped down on 17 February, including Chelsea’s joint-sporting directors Paul Winstanley and Laurence Stewart. Co-owners Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali also stood down as directors of BlueCo Data Limited on 28 February. Whether that’s enough depends entirely on whether both clubs end up in Europe. Chelsea’s league form has collapsed; Strasbourg sit eighth in Ligue 1 but could win the Conference League, earning automatic Europa League qualification — a scenario UEFA’s MCO rules don’t explicitly address.
| Club | Linked club | Action taken | Key risk |
|---|---|---|---|
| Everton | Roma | Undisclosed restructuring | Dan Friedkin on both boards |
| Chelsea | Strasbourg | Board members resigned | Potential Conference League win |
| Nottingham Forest | Olympiakos | Blind trust established | Compliance date disputed |
| Brighton | Hearts / Union SG | Stake reduced below 30% in 2023 | Champions League qualifying overlap |
Nottingham Forest and their owner Evangelos Marinakis have navigated this before — last year, a blind trust was set up to separate Forest from Olympiakos when Champions League qualification was on the cards. The same scenario has emerged again, with Forest in the Europa League semi-finals and Olympiakos also likely to appear in the Champions League. Marinakis was formally removed as person of significant control on 28 February, replaced by independent trustees through a company called Pittville Four Limited. But Companies House wasn’t updated until 17 April — raising the question of which date UEFA will actually recognise as the moment of compliance. Forest insist 28 February is the definitive date. Two years ago, the CFCB accepted a blind trust to clear Manchester City and Girona, but explicitly stated it “will not be bound by this alternative in subsequent seasons.” No absolute certainty exists until the CFCB rules again.
Brighton, Leeds and the ownership ripple effect across football
Tony Bloom built Brighton into a Premier League fixture and then expanded outward — he now holds shares in Scottish Premiership leaders Hearts and Belgian club Union Saint-Gilloise. All three could potentially qualify for the same European competition this season. Bloom had to reduce his controlling stake in Union Saint-Gilloise below 30% before the 2023-24 Europa League season, precisely because Brighton had also qualified. When he invested in Hearts last year, he deliberately kept his stake at 29% — just below the trigger threshold, suggesting he’d already calculated the risk.
Leeds United’s European hopes effectively ended with their FA Cup semi-final defeat against Chelsea. Still, steps had already been taken. Leeds are wholly owned by 49ers Enterprises, which also holds 51% of Rangers. Paraag Marathe sat on the board of both clubs simultaneously — until 27 February, when he stepped down from his role at Ibrox. Gene Schneur, also on both boards, resigned at the same time. Leeds believe those departures would have resolved any MCO conflict had they progressed further in the cup.
The bigger picture here is this : multi-club ownership has fundamentally changed how top clubs plan their seasons. Legal teams now work alongside recruitment departments. Corporate restructuring timelines run parallel to match schedules. For any Premier League club with European ambitions and a complex ownership web, finishing fourth is only half the battle — the other half happens in boardrooms and at Companies House.
