The Premier League have confirmed a delay to the start of the 2026/27 campaign, with the club season pushed back to make space for the World Cup.
In a statement on the Premier League website on Friday, the competition organisers confirmed that the start date of the 2026/27 edition of the competition has been pushed back by a week.
The Premier League will now kick off on Saturday, August 22nd 2026, and it will run until Sunday, May 30th 2027. By comparison, Arsenal kicked off this league season on August 17th and will end it on May 24th.
The decision to delay the Premier League’s start date is due to the World Cup, allowing over a month between the end of the international tournament and the start of the new club season.
The 2026 World Cup kicks off on June 11th, with the group stages ending on June 27th. But the tournament doesn’t end until the final on July 19th.
The chances of Arsenal players being knocked out by June 27th are also relatively low, given FIFA’s new expanded 48-team World Cup only eliminates 16 teams at the end of the group stages. The other 32 progress, so it’s likely all the big sides will still be involved going into July.
It’s a single-elimination knockout competition from then on, so that number will quickly drop after that. But there’s still a decent chance some Arsenal players will remain abroad until mid-to-late July.
One thing to note about the Premier League’s May 30th end date is that it’s a week before the Champions League final on Saturday, June 5th 2027.
The league also confirm that the season will consist of 33 weekend matches and five midweek games, as well as committing to designing the schedule to avoid domestic clashes with UEFA competition dates.
That’s a bit of a sore point for Arsenal and Crystal Palace fans at the moment, with the two clubs moving their league games after they had been “confirmed” due to a clash between one of Palace’s Conference League fixtures and the League Cup quarter-final.
Hopefully a similar situation can be avoided next season.