Crystal Palace Football Club is a professional club and one of the mid-table clubs based in Selhurst, London. The club nicknamed The Eagles plays in the Premier League, the top flight of English football. Crystal Palace was founded in 1905 at the famous Crystal Palace Exhibition building.
During their early years, the club played at the FA Cup Final stadium situated inside the historic Palace grounds. The outbreak of the First World War forced the club to leave the Palace in 1915, and they played at nearby Herne Hill Velodrome and the Nest until 1924 when they moved to their current home at Selhurst Park.
Since 1964, Palace have mostly played in the top two leagues of English football and have had seven separate spells in the top flight. Their most successful to date came in the late 1980s and early 1990s during which they achieved their highest ever league finish of third place in the top flight in the 1990–91 season.
Palace were denied a place in Europe at the end of that season because of the partial UEFA ban on English clubs at that time following the Heysel Stadium disaster. It was also during this period that the club became founding members of the Premier League. Palace have reached the FA Cup final twice, losing to Manchester United on both occasions in 1990 and 2016.
The club’s traditional kit colours were originally claret and blue, but in 1973 they decided to change to the red and blue vertical stripes now worn today. Palace have a fierce rivalry with Brighton & Hove Albion, with whom they contest the M23 derby and also share rivalries with fellow South London clubs Millwall and Charlton Athletic.
The club narrowly avoided relegation from the Premier League in 2016/17 thanks to manager Sam Allardyce. In 2017/18, Palace lost most of their first ten games and sacked their manager Frank De Boer. They looked certain of relegation but luckily they made a smart decision in hiring former England manager Roy Hodgson.
The English manager did remarkably well with a limited squad and budget and helped them to stay up in the Premier League. Palace have also been able to hold on to their best player Wilfried Zaha this season, who signed a new contract last year that makes him the highest-earning player at the South London club.
He has been followed by Max Meyer, who was brought into the side in summer 2018 and Christian Benteke as the second and third highest-earning players at Crystal Palace.
Wilfried Zaha is the current Crystal Palace highest-paid player with a weekly wage of £130,000 per-week. The Ivory Coast international advanced into the Crystal Palace first team from their academy, in 2010. The winger is followed by summer 2018 signing Max Meyer and striker Christian Benteke, with £125,000 and £120,000 respectively.
Crystal Palace 2019-20 Payroll
| Player | Gross Weekly Wages |
| Wilfried Zaha | £130,000 |
| Max Meyer | £125,000 |
| Christian Benteke | £120,000 |
| Mamadou Sakho | £100,000 |
| Cheikhou Kouyate | £65,000 |
| Scott Dann | £60,000 |
| Vicente Guaita | £60,000 |
| Connor Wickham | £60,000 |
| Jeffrey Schlupp | £58,000 |
| James McArthur | £55,000 |
| Jairo Riedewald | £55,000 |
| Luka Milivojevic | £55,000 |
| Andros Townsend | £55,000 |
| Patrick Van Aanholt | £55,000 |
| James Tomkins | £50,000 |
| Jordan Ayew | £33,000 |
| Martin Kelly | £25,000 |
