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Crystal Palace to face Dynamo Kyiv, Strasbourg in Conference League / Photo: © AFP
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Crystal Palace to face Dynamo Kyiv, Strasbourg in Conference League
Crystal Palace will face Dynamo Kyiv and Strasbourg in this season's UEFA Conference League as the London club learned their fate Friday for their first ever European campaign.
The draw in Monaco also gave Palace a home game against AZ Alkmaar, the Dutch side who got to the UEFA Cup final in 1981 and the Conference League semi-finals in 2023.
Oliver Glasner's team, who won the FA Cup last season to claim a first major piece of silverware in the club's history, will also welcome last year's Finnish champions KuPS Kuopio and the Cypriot Cup holders AEK Larnaca to Selhurst Park.
They will play away to Dynamo, who are hosting European games in Lublin in Poland due to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.
On top of that there will be a trip to Strasbourg, the French side owned by the BlueCo consortium which also runs Chelsea. Palace's other game will be away in Dublin against last year's Irish champions Shelbourne.
Palace's FA Cup success would have qualified them for the Europa League but they were demoted to the Conference League due to a breach of multi-club ownership rules.
UEFA found that American businessman John Textor had control or influence in both Palace and French club Lyon.
Textor later agreed to sell his 43 percent stake in the Premier League club to New York Jets owner Woody Johnson, but that deal did not go through in time to meet a UEFA deadline.
With Lyon also qualifying for the Europa League and finishing higher in their domestic league, Palace dropped into the continent's third-tier competition and were replaced in the former tournament by Nottingham Forest.
Palace -- victors against Fredrikstad of Norway in the play-off round this week -- are aiming to follow in the footsteps of Chelsea, who won the Conference League last season.
The first round of matches in the league phase will be played on Thursday, October 2, with the sixth and final matchday set for December 18.
This season's Conference League final will be staged in Leipzig in Germany on May 27 next year.
Also among the 36 clubs involved in the league phase are Fiorentina -- who lost the Conference League final in 2023 and 2024 -- Shakhtar Donetsk, Sparta Prague, Rayo Vallecano, Mainz and Aberdeen.
G.Allen--SFF
