Crystal Palace fail with request to move Arsenal game

Crystal Palace have failed in an attempt to reschedule their match against Arsenal this weekend, with the club hoping to get more time to prepare for the Europa Conference League final.

Dominic King reports for The Telegraph that after Arsenal became Premier League champions on Tuesday, Crystal Palace officials took the opportunity to propose moving their game against the Gunners to this Saturday.

Palace were hoping that they could get an extra 24 hours to prepare for the Europa Conference League final, particularly given their opponents Rayo Vallecano will play their last league match on Saturday.

But the Premier League cited TV obligations among the reasons why the change couldn’t happen.

“We tried to move the game to Sat­urday because this would help us,” Palace boss Oliver Glasner confirmed in his press conference. “Rayo Val­le­cano play Sat­urday even­ing as they moved the game for­ward. We thought the league has already been decided.

“I didn’t call any­body but it was Wed­nes­day morn­ing [when the club enquired]. We were think­ing about it before but we didn’t call the Premier League and say, ‘Hey! Move the game if the title race isn’t decided on the last match day!’

“I was just told it doesn’t work, there’s con­trac­tual issues, TV rights and every­one wants the big final day with the cel­eb­ra­tion as Arsenal get the trophy.”

Arsenal probably wouldn’t have minded the change if it had been made earlier, given the Gunners never had a midweek game to worry about fitting in, and the team have a Champions League final to prepare for the following weekend.

But at this late stage, moving the Palace game would mean inconveniencing a lot of fans who had already made plans for the final day, including those flying in from abroad for the Sunday celebrations.

The Premier League also traditionally holds all of the final games of the season at the same time.

Even if Arsenal and Palace both preferred the Saturday, moving just that one game would mean breaking with tradition, and moving all of them would likely result in a lot of other unhappy clubs and supporters.

It was worth a try, but Palace’s request was never likely to succeed.

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