Arsenal and the Premier League have confirmed the Gunners’ match against Everton is now subject to change, despite being officially confirmed over a month ago.
On Tuesday morning, Arsenal and the Premier League confirmed that they’ve failed to guarantee that Arsenal’s fixture against Everton in March won’t be moved later this week.
The Premier League had officially announced on January 21st – over a month ago – that the Arsenal-Everton clash would take place on Sunday, March 15th at 14:00 GMT, with no asterisks or warning that this might turn out not to be the case.
The Premier League usually add a note to any games that might need to move depending on other competitions, but they didn’t do so in this case.
As a result, many fans will have already bought tickets and booked travel and accommodation based on the league’s official guarantee.
The Premier League are blaming UEFA, claiming they informed UEFA that clubs scheduled to play on Sunday, March 15th (i.e. Arsenal) would not be available to play Champions League fixtures on Tuesday, March 17th.
But in response, UEFA didn’t provide any guarantees on scheduling ahead of Friday’s round-of-16 draw. Arsenal might still play on Tuesday, and thus the Everton game could move to Saturday.
The Premier League admit that they “now [face] the possibility of rescheduling its fixtures at even shorter notice, at the inconvenience of supporters and clubs”.
The ‘good’ news is that the Premier League will be able to finally confirm the fixture after Friday’s Champions League draw. Arsenal report that they’ll publish fixture details as soon as they are confirmed on Friday.
But this is just the latest failure by the Premier League to stick to their own guarantees and promises on fixture scheduling, with matchgoing fans to pay the price.
This scheduling issue was known to fans weeks ago, with many on social media questioning the decision to unreservedly guarantee the timing before the Champions League draw was known. At the time, it was believed that the Premier League must have received some guarantees from UEFA.
Instead, it now appears the Premier League were just guessing and hoping their decision wouldn’t be an issue, even though it was always obvious it could be.