And so the ugly rules-and-regs feud between Crystal Palace and Nottingham Forest shifted in format once more — no longer club statement warfare amplified by tubthumping fans hurling out insults on social media. The battleground returned to the more familiar territory of an actual football match. El CASico, as they’re calling it.
It was all very 21st Century that this game should have even stood out from the list of early-season fixtures, a rivalry born of UEFA’s Club Financial Control Body’s (CFCB) ruling to demote Palace to the Conference League and promote Forest to the Europa League due to an alleged breach of its multi-club ownership rules — a decision that prompted an unsuccessful appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
