Morning all.
Let’s start this morning with the news that our home game against Chelsea, which had been selected for TV coverage and moved to the 5.30pm slot on Saturday April 29th, has been moved to Tuesday, May 2nd with an 8pm kickoff.
There had been rumours about this for a little while, and the explanation appears to be that with a huge event in London the following weekend (the coronation), police are being asked to take leave the weekend of the Chelsea game and thus there won’t be sufficient coverage for the game to take place safely.
Given that this event has been in the planning for months, it seems short-sighted to say the least that the decision has been made with such short notice. A statement from The Met (Metropolitan Police) reads:
The Met engaged with the Premier League, Arsenal Football Club and Islington Council, through a Safety Advisory Group since February, to negotiate an earlier week-end kick-off tor the Arsenal vs Chelsea football match, when notified of the proposed television scheduling at 17:30hrs, on 29 April.
‘This was as a preventive and proactive measure to help mitigate Antisocial Behaviour and crime associated with later weekend kick-offs. THe Met suggested on earlier kick-off time on 29 April to minimise crime and disorder and the impact on Fans, which was declined by football partners who instead chose to play the fixture on on alternative date.
A new date of Tuesday 2 May at 20:00 Hrs has now been agreed.
Which makes it sound like it’s the fault of the clubs. Arsenal say ‘We are very disappointed with the impact and disruption this fixture change will cause to our supporters, particularly after this match had been initially approved for a Saturday evening kick-off.’
And perhaps they could have chosen an earlier time to play it, but given that we face Chelsea after our trip to play Man City on the previous Wednesday night – a game which is likely to be as intense as it gets – you can understand why that wouldn’t exactly be an option we’re keen on. There’s no information as to how much earlier the game would need to have been played, but I assume it would have had to have been significantly so. If The Met could police a 3pm game, surely there’s no reason why they couldn’t do a 5.30pm game either. On that basis, I can understand why we’d eschew the option of an early Saturday kickoff after that particular game on the Wednesday before.
So, for the team and the players there might be a benefit, those extra days of rest and preparation might be crucial as we continue to our title challenge. But for fans – well, once more they’ve been left in the lurch. In this small corner of the Arsenal Internet, I’ve seen so many messages from fans who have booked flights and hotels, having also somehow managed to get tickets for an Arsenal home game (we know they’re like hen’s teeth at the moment), whose plans are now ruined. When you consider how many Arsenal communities there are online, multiply that again, and there are a lot of good people out of pocket, and absolutely gutted at the same time.
The Arsenal Supporter’s Trust have released a statement along with their Chelsea counterparts:
Arsenal v Chelsea has been postponed & re-arranged with 18 days notice.
A joint statement from us and the @ChelseaSTrust @WeAreTheFSA #FansFirst #LastMinuteChange #Unacceptable #UnfairOnFans pic.twitter.com/PFE7AocBqz
— AST (@AST_arsenal) April 11, 2023
I should point out that there’s also the FA Youth Cup Final which is scheduled to be played at the Emirates and on the same date as the Chelsea game was originally meant to happen, but that’s the kind of fixture that can easily be changed without impacting people the way this move has.
It’s not the first time this season that fans have been affected like this, and at this point there needs to be a rethink on fixture scheduling. Bar an emergency of some description, there should be no reason to move a game this late in the day. The Premier League markets itself as the best league in the world, and if part of your raison d’etre is to attract a global audience, you need to be cognisant that people from all over the world will come to see and support their clubs.
Surely there must be a way to put a minimum time frame on it. At least four weeks or something, after which there can be no further change. TV companies leave it late enough already, looking to see who’s doing what so they – as peddlers of entertainment more than sports broadcasters – can build the narrative around each game. Fans look at the original fixtures, and understand that games can move, so they see Arsenal v Chelsea and know it could be Friday night or Saturday evening or Sunday afternoon or even Monday night. Travel plans are made around that, but shifting it to a Tuesday banjaxes the plans of so many people.
I’m really sorry for anyone who has been impacted by this. For those who have planned special trips from far away, it must be a nightmare. At best it’s going to cost them a small fortune to change flights and hotels, at worst they have to cancel. It’s not just fans from abroad either, Arsenal have supporters up and down the UK whose own plans for this one will be negatively affected.
Just to finish, the thing that really bothers me is the suggestion that, as with the previous point in the season where fixtures were impacted at the last minute, the issue is with football fans who can’t be trusted to behave properly. The reality is, whether it’s the Premier League, Sky, BT, the police, or even clubs themselves at times, they can’t be trusted to do what’s right for the people who are, without being too cliched about it, the lifeblood of the game itself.
Till tomorrow.
