Chelsea/Everton Fixture Switch Barminess
Written by Phil McThomas on March 29, 2008 – 4:02 pmIf you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
Can anyone help me figure out why the Everton v Chelsea match was switched from a weekend to a Thursday night?
Chelsea and Everton are both complaining, on the grounds of messing with the fans and impinging on sporting integrity. For once, I’m with Chelsea all the way on this one - Everton will have had five days rest to Chelsea’s three, again thanks to television.
What I can’t figure out is why either the early or the late television slot on the Saturday was not used - according to the BBC, they’re both open right now.
You would think that the Premier League would take the time to give a well thought out explanation to the fans if they’re going to throw them off-schedule and possibly derail their team’s title ambitions.
Premier League Spokeman: “The compilation of the fixture list is a complex procedure which faces enormous pressure from international match and European competition dates, as well as the need to balance the important requirements of the police and our broadcasters. We are also required by the European Commission to televise 138 matches per season, which brings its own inevitable pressures. Under these difficult circumstances, this date was seen as the fairest that could be achieved.”
To paraphrase: “Football fans aren’t smart enough to comprehend what we do here”. Then they throw in a few factors - that don’t apply here - by way of misdirection, then blame someone else.
As an experiment with how open the Premier League is with its customers, I’ll see if I can get a straight answer from the Premier League. Stand by (but don’t hold your breath).
Update: The Premier League website now has the early and late Saturday kick-offs allocated to Arsenal v Reading and Blackburn v Man Utd.
Posted in Rethinking Competition |
March 29th, 2008 at 10:43 pm
Phil, it’s pretty simple why this game was moved from the weekend to Thursday. Besides the Villa-Birmingham derby, Chelsea-Everton is by far the best match in this round of games. You’ve got one team fighting for a league title and the other fighting for the last Champions League spot.
Why not put this game in primetime without any competition from other games? It will get more viewers and bring in more money.
We do the same thing in America with Sunday and Monday Night Football, and then again on Thanksgiving.
Money talks, you know that, I know that. Not sure why you’re so surprised by this.
March 29th, 2008 at 11:01 pm
Why not put this game in primetime? Because it undermines the sporting integrity of the league. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised at this point, but I think it clearly puts Chelsea at a disadvantage and yet the Premier League is eager to accommodate Sky.
The examples you give in the NFL are all well-planned out at the start of the season. It also doesn’t mess with integrity in the same way because the games are a week apart, instead of half-a-week.
March 30th, 2008 at 2:33 am
They’re planned out up to a certain point in the year, at least Sunday Night football is; MNF is scheduled for the whole year. After a certain week, NBC gets flex scheduling power and chooses a game they want to put in primetime a week in advance, similar to what we’re seeing here.
Both Chelsea and Everton are used to playing games in midweek anyway on short rest as they’ve done it in Europe all season. Sure, they get shortchanged a couple days of rest, but wouldn’t they get those two days back by not having to play until the next weekend? That would seem to balance it out.
March 30th, 2008 at 3:15 am
[…] If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!The Caught Offside blog had a post about Premier League re-arranging the Everton v Chelsea match in three week’s time, or Chelsea Throw Toys Out of Pram, as they put it (I took a slightly more sympathetic view). […]
March 30th, 2008 at 3:21 am
I disagree. I think the difference between 3 days and 5 days rest (i.e. Chelsea and Everton) is greater than 7 days and 9 days rest (i.e. Chelsea and Man Utd, the following week). After a certain number of days, I’m guessing that it becomes irrelevant.
Teams are playing each other throughout the season on differing amount of rest, but that’s generally unavoidable - European fixtures, cup replays, postponements, etc. But this is just arbitrary and unavoidable.
April 4th, 2008 at 11:58 am
it is a way of defying chelsea aspiration dream but it will lead to nothing. the FA is not fair to chelsea. what happens if they qualify for the UEFA champs league