Two football stories over the last couple of weeks, may seem unrelated, but I have a strange feeling there may be a link. The first story emerged on 7th May with the UEFA proposal of moving Champions League matches to the weekend, to maximise the interest in their flagship tournament its profile (http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/36236116). The second story is the change to the league structure of English Football. Separately they seem stand alone, but when you look back to how football has worked recently, (especially with the awarding of the 2022 World Cup four years earlier than normal, and then give the Leagues an extra four years to deal with the fall out of moving the World Cup to the European winter) it does ask some questions.
This proposed change to the Champions League fixtures can’t happen before 2021 because of TV contracts, and the change in league structure aimed for the start of 2019-2020. The change to the league structure is suggested to remove midweek matches from the schedule. Currently there are four matches scheduled for midweek in League 1 and League 2, and six for the Championship. By doing this the Football League say that it will help the clubs make more money, though some clubs have already expressed concerns with the loss of four home matches in a season, which for top Championship teams could amount to 1.5 to 2 million pounds.
Then…
Two years after the removal of midweek matches from the fixture list, the Champions League group stages (six matches) are potentially moved to the weekend! With domestic matches not being allowed to be televised at the same time as Champions League matches (which is completely unacceptable to me), will the full fixture cards be moved to the midweek? There would be space in the calendar. Apart from the fact that most supporters of other clubs aren’t overly bothered about watching Chelsea v Macaibi Tel Aviv, why should the majority of the clubs have to be inconvenienced for the benefit of the few. I may be completely wrong and there may not be any link between the two stories, but nothing would surprise me in the governance of football.
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