Brighton and Hove Albion and Hearts of Midlothian could both compete in the league phase of this season's UEFA Conference League, despite the two clubs sharing a common owner in businessman Tony Bloom.
Brighton will face Norwegian side Tromso in the final qualifying round, while Hearts take on Austrian club Rapid Vienna. Should both English and Scottish sides progress, they would enter the same European competition simultaneously - a scenario that has already been cleared by European football's governing body, UEFA.
Bloom, who built his fortune through gambling and data analytics, has steadily expanded his footballing empire in recent years. After transforming Brighton into an established Premier League club, he turned his attention to Scottish football, investing in Hearts, and also holds interests in Belgian outfit Union Saint-Gilloise.
The prospect of Brighton sharing a European stage with clubs under the same ownership umbrella became a talking point towards the end of last season, and with both Brighton and Hearts navigating their way through the Conference League play-off round, that possibility has now materialised.
The situation draws inevitable comparisons to Crystal Palace's experience last season, when the London club was demoted from the Europa League because of a multi-club ownership dispute involving French side Lyon. That raises the question of why Brighton and Hearts have been permitted to proceed without similar sanction.
The answer lies in the specific ownership structures Bloom has put in place, which appear to have been carefully designed to comply with UEFA's regulations on multi-club ownership. The rules stipulate that a 30% ownership stake acts as a key trigger for scrutiny under the governing body's multi-club framework.
During the 2023-24 campaign, both Brighton and Union Saint-Gilloise qualified for the Europa League at the same time. In response, Bloom trimmed his shareholding in the Belgian club down to 29%, positioning it just under UEFA's threshold.
When Bloom subsequently acquired a stake in Hearts last year, he is understood to have applied the same approach, again taking a 29% share in the Edinburgh-based club - a move widely seen as a deliberate effort to avoid falling foul of the same rules that affected Palace.
Beyond simple shareholding percentages, UEFA also examines other factors when assessing multi-club ownership conflicts, including the make-up of a club's board and where genuine decision-making power resides. Both Brighton and Hearts are understood to have satisfied UEFA on these additional criteria as well.
The contrast with Crystal Palace's case is stark. At the time of their demotion, American businessman John Textor owned Lyon while also sitting on Palace's board and controlling 44.09% of the London club's share capital through his company, Eagle Football Holdings. That combination of a significant ownership stake and direct boardroom influence was deemed a clear breach of UEFA's multi-club ownership rules.
By contrast, Bloom's more cautious approach - keeping his ownership stakes just below the critical threshold across his various clubs - appears to have allowed Brighton and Hearts to sidestep the kind of conflict that cost Palace their European place.
Should both clubs win their remaining qualifying ties, football fans could see the unusual spectacle of two clubs under the same owner's broader business network competing independently in the same UEFA competition this season.
Based on reporting from BBC Sport.