Steve Parish feels it doesn't help that rumours of a potential takeover at Crystal Palace were leaked to the media.

Stories broke on Friday night American billionaire and Philadelphia 76ers basketball team owner Josh Harris was on the brink of purchasing the Selhurst Park outfit.

Selhurst co-chairman Parish was keen to reassure Eagles fans on Monday no takeover was 'imminent' after it was claimed it could even potentially be completed by the end of this week.

But he is the first to admit he would have preferred it if the story had not gone public in the first place.

Parish said: “It is not helpful if every single time you talk to anybody the press get hold of it. It is one of those things.

“There have been many times where there are people talking to you and it hasn’t got out.

He said: “It is not helpful if every single time you talk to anybody the press get hold of it. It is one of those things.

“There have been many times where there are people talking to you and it hasn’t got out.

“People are talking to football clubs all the time about buying them.

“The Premier League is the biggest league in the world, the most exciting league in the world in any kind of sport.

“We are a London-based team, we get approaches from all over the world and we are always polite – we talk to everybody, we consider everything and look at it to see if it is in the best interests of the club.”

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Parish and his fellow CPFC 2010 investors Martin Long, Steve Browett and Jeremy Hosking rescued the club from administration more than four years ago and have transformed Palace into hot property.

And although he accepts there might come a point when it would be the right time to sell, Parish was keen to stress the main priority was to keep the club in the Premier League and continue strengthening its links within the community.

He explained: “You are never going to own a football club forever.

“You’ve got to separate what we would like to do really, and as a person who runs it I’ve got to separate what I would like to do and how much I might enjoy running my football club and look at what is good for the club.

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“What is good for the club is that we sustain ourselves in this league.

“We came into it really to try and do something for the area that we grew up in.

“Football clubs are such a focal point of a community nowadays and give people pride in your area.

“We are a strange kind of area south-east London in that it is never that bad that we get any kind of big regeneration investment, but it is hard sometimes to create something that is a focal point or source of pride for communities.”

Parish added: “I want Crystal Palace to be a source of pride for the people of Bromley, the people of Croydon and the people of south-east London.

“I want the best and most sustainable way of doing that – that’s what I came in to try and do.

“The other guys (from CPFC 2010) came in and have been fantastic in helping me do that, we’ve come a very long way very quickly so I want to keep that momentum up.

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“I don’t want to lose that advantage that we have got because there is so much more still to do.”

“At the end of the day, we are four co-owners who want the best thing for the club.

“You just see that there are good – and maybe not so good – people that can help football clubs, so it is as much about diligence and the people that are interested than it is about them making an offer and buying you.

“Anybody who buys this football club, we would be very interested in what their plans were for the club, how they plan to move it forward.

“If what they are going to invest wisely is what we feel the club needs and can take it forward, then we would look at it.”

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