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Palace won't spend stake sale funds on transfers - Parish

LONDON (Reuters) - Crystal Palace fans should not expect the club to splash out on player transfers after securing substantial investment from two American sports team owners, the Premier League club's co-chairman Steve Parish has said.

Parish is close to selling a stake in the south London club to Josh Harris and David Blitzer, co-owners of the New Jersey Devils NHL team and the NBA's Philadelphia 76ers, in a deal that will reportedly bring in about 100 million pounds of external investment.

Palace, who won promotion back to the Premier League two years ago and are seventh in the table, want to upgrade their Selhurst Park stadium and training ground.

"The most important thing is the money that is available to invest in the infrastructure of the club," Parish told the London Evening Standard on Tuesday.

"I should stress, this isn't for new players. We can manage that out of our own resources. This is to build the infrastructure of the club and to take it to the next level.

"In effect, there will be more money available because the money that is currently diverted into those areas will instead be available for players. But it is not going to be a huge extra investment in players.

"As much as we can, we will ring-fence the new investment for the infrastructure of the club, which most clubs don't have the luxury of."

(Reporting by Simon Jennings in Bengaluru, editing by Ed Osmond)