by The latest round of capital raising among Crystal Palace shareholders for the club’s new Selhurst Park main stand was in its final stages this week, in what will be the first major work on the stadium since the 1990s – although the change will not be enough for enough. .
There was more discontent at Goodison Park on Wednesday night – with the FA Cup win, Roy Hodgson’s representatives and general dismay at some of the club’s support who have expressed their displeasure with the status quo. What is that status quo? It is in fact the most successful period in the history of one of Britain’s oldest clubs. Palace are in their 11th consecutive season in the Premier League – the longest unbroken spell in the English top flight in more than 100 years of league football.
Palace have also come close to a first major trophy – an FA Cup final in 2016 and a semi-final six years later – but club football is never that simple. Fan moods rise and fall according to many factors that cannot always be offset by predictions of a better future.
Hodgson kept Palace in the Premier League for five seasons, including when he returned last March, following Pádraig Vieira. If this season is to be the end of a 48-year managerial career, Hodgson’s run has been a remarkable one. It has outperformed all comparable European peers. He may, for example, bump into Arsene Wenger when Palace visit the Emirates on Saturday. The Frenchman is almost two years Hodgson’s junior. Hodgson may not have as many trophies as Wenger or others like him, but none of them have been in demand for a long time.
Hodgson has seen enough in football to know, however, that the long-term strategy is sound, when it comes to results many don’t want to hear it. In a game that runs on emotions the mood can change quickly. Palace’s plan to convert Premier League and investor money into infrastructure – stadium, training ground, academy – is the only viable long-term strategy. But it’s a big deal to sign a change – someone, anyone.
Momentum needs to be generated in the final days of the window. Chairman Steve Parish and director of football Dougie Freedman are active in the market, while Kalvin Phillips could be a further addition to an injury-hit midfield department. Like many others, Palace are looking at a striker and right back. But this is a club that has slowly built itself up in the Premier League since unexpected promotion in 2013. That plan will not change.
Palace are in the bottom eight in the division in terms of revenue generation. Over 13 years, since the club emerged from administration in the Parish-led consortium, around £80 million has been invested. Nothing compared to the big-ticket investments from owners at Manchester City, Newcastle United, Chelsea, Everton – and even the likes of Tottenham recently. But those kinds of fossil fuel billionaires, private equity and nation-state investors aren’t queuing up to buy Palace.
The club now generates, depending on league results, around £130 million from core TV rights payouts and around £40 million in commercial and daytime revenue. A mere drop compared to the league’s big hitters. The £160million investment in the new main stand, the first serious modernization of Selhurst Park since the reconstruction of the Holmesdale Stand in the 1990s, could eventually inject another £20million into revenue.
All this takes time. Meanwhile, the competition is fierce. Aston Villa has wealthy owners who are expanding Villa Park. West Ham have effectively built a stadium which has been subsidized by the government. Tony Bloom has invested over £400 million in Brighton. All of these clubs were Palace’s mid-table rivals at one time and have all spent time in the Championship over the past 15 years. But in 2024 the standard among that cohort becomes higher than ever.
Hodgson has guided Palace through a crucial period in the rebuilding of the training ground and academy, which cost £50 million including land acquisition. The club recognizes that it needs to do more to develop and sell academy players and that investment is in part intentional. The final phase – a major injury rehabilitation center – opens in May and with it the rebuilding of a training ground that was not really a training ground in the past. For a long time it was just a few temporary cabins and playgrounds.
For Hodgson, the challenge this season is to tackle some of the spending constraints that investment in other parts of the club may have. Injuries to Michael Olise and Eberechi Eze have seriously affected his team this season. Cheick Doucoure ruptured his Achilles in November and will not play again until 2024-25. These three, along with Marc Guehi, represent the club’s best assets and Hodgson’s successor may have to deal with selling one or more in the summer.
But that is the reality of life at a club where both previous ownerships have suffered administration, including the separation of stadium and club. The current regime is determined to do it differently. But just five wins in the series can lead to season-long frustration, as Goodison did on Wednesday. Hodgson has been trying to manage the ankle tendon problem Eze has been suffering from and made a memorable start at lunchtime at Arsenal on Saturday. The travelers responded badly.
There are many reasons why Palace’s squad is thin. The wage bill is around £100 million when all the extras and bonuses are added in, which means that under the new financial balance regulations that are likely to come in – known as squad costs – Palace must earn increase to comply. The club takes profit and sustainability rules (PSR) as seriously as would be expected and, in the current enforcement environment, that consideration is no small feat.
The club has tried to create a different path at times. Signing established players for higher wages such as Yohan Cabaye and Christian Benteke had a distorting effect on the wage bill, with no resale value, and is unlikely to happen again. The success of signing Olise, Eze, Guehi, Doucoure and Joachim Andersen has set a high bar. The recruiting department has recalibrated to accept that every player cannot be expected to tick every box, including good resale value.
There has been some straightforward talk from Hodgson in recent months about what supporters can realistically expect. He would later apologize for declaring that fans were “spoiled”. But the point raised is true. Are fans willing to accept the process of building a club in the modern era? Especially when that construction comes from a very low base, amidst extraordinary competition, and under the auspices of PSR. The recent PSR charges on Everton and Nottingham Forest provide a new dimension.
Palace’s situation could be better and it is not difficult to contend with lower mid-table survival, or the relative success of peers. But it could also be much worse, and with this approach there is a clear strategy: raise Palace’s financial capacity to move them out of reach of the lowest earners in the division and look beyond a battle for survival annual Premier League.
“They’ve seen the trials and tribulations, and I’m sure they have a dream that one day there will be no more trials and tribulations,” Hodgson told fans on Friday. “But they are used to helping the team through these periods.”
No billionaire is waiting to buy Palace and spend up to the limits of PSR and beyond the stadium. We know this because, if that were the case, the current ownership would have sold. Around 55 percent of the club is owned by Parish, American investors Josh Harris and David Blitzer, and various small shareholders. Eagle Football, led by US investor John Textor, owns 45 percent. All shareholders will contribute to the new stand and Parish will personally guarantee around £5million. Harris is a billionaire, the owner of a sports franchise in the United States, but not the type willing to spend a fortune at Palace.
Meanwhile, Parish and Hodgson are leading the criticism. Being prepared to be unpopular, at least for a while, is a requirement that not everyone in football can live with. That said, neither man has built their careers constantly worrying about what people think.
The alternative, of course, is to promise what you don’t have and spend what you can’t spend, although there are consequences for that. Palace have sailed close to the wind in the Premier League and, for over 11 years, they have survived in its art form. The long-term prize – building infrastructure to increase revenue and ultimately increase squad depth – is the only sensible path to sustainability. It’s a good destination, although the journey there can be wild.
