Crystal Palace F.C.

This article is about the men's football club. For the women's football club, see Crystal Palace F.C. (Women). For the original amateur Palace team, see Crystal Palace F.C. (1861).
"CPFC" redirects here. For other uses, see CPFC (disambiguation).

Crystal Palace
Full nameCrystal Palace Football Club
Nickname(s)
  • The Eagles
  • The Glaziers[A]
Short name
  • Palace
  • CPFC
Founded10 September 1905; 119 years ago (1905-09-10)[B]
StadiumSelhurst Park
Capacity25,486[2]
Owners
ChairmanSteve Parish
ManagerOliver Glasner
LeaguePremier League
2023–24Premier League, 10th of 20
Websitecpfc.co.uk
Current season

Crystal Palace Football Club (commonly referred to as simply Palace) is a professional football club based in Selhurst in the Borough of Croydon, South London, England. The club competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football.

Although formally created as a professional outfit in 1905 at the Crystal Palace Exhibition building, the club's origins can be traced as far back as 1861.[3][4] The club used the FA Cup final stadium situated inside the grounds of the Palace for their home games between 1905 and 1915, when they were forced to leave due to the outbreak of the First World War. In 1924, they moved to their current home at Selhurst Park.

Palace spent their early years as a professional club playing in the Southern League, winning various regional titles. They were elected to the Football League in 1920, and have overall mainly competed in the top two tiers of English football during their league history. Since 1964, Palace have only dropped below the second tier once for three seasons between 1974 and 1977. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, Palace became a force in the top flight and challenged Arsenal and Liverpool for the English league title in 1990–91, but eventually ended the season in third place, the club's highest league finish to date. Palace only missed out on qualification for the UEFA Cup at the end of that season due to the limited number of European places available to English clubs after the lifting of the UEFA ban caused by the Heysel Stadium disaster. It was also around this time that Palace reached the FA Cup final in 1990, narrowly losing to Manchester United after a replay, and they became founder members of the Premier League.

Following their relegation from the Premier League in 1998, Palace went into decline after suffering financial problems which resulted in the club going into administration twice. But Palace recovered and were promoted back to the Premier League in 2013, where they have remained ever since and reached another FA Cup final in 2016, again finishing runners-up to Manchester United. The club are currently on their longest continuous run in the top flight, achieving twelve consecutive seasons at the start of the 2024–25 campaign.

The club's kit colours were claret and blue until 1973, when they changed to the red and blue vertical stripes worn today. Palace have a long-standing and fierce rivalry with Brighton & Hove Albion,[5] and also share strong rivalries with local clubs Millwall and Charlton Athletic.


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  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference guardian1861 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference cap2021 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Palace at the Palace. Peter Manning 2018.
  4. ^ The Origin of Crystal Palace FC, Volume I. Steve Martyniuk 2016.
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference In Bed With Maradona was invoked but never defined (see the help page).