Premier League plans to schedule Wolves-Chelsea match on Christmas Eve

The Premier League plans to schedule a match on the day before Christmas, 24th December, breaking a tradition that has suffered only one exception since the competition was renamed in 1992.

The English league wants to schedule the match between Wolverhampton Wanderers and Chelsea on Christmas Eve in order to satisfy the television operators, who want to postpone the game by 24 hours, as it is originally scheduled for 23rd December.

The competition tends to experience a particularly hectic schedule at Christmas, with matches from 23rd December to 1st January, but the date of the 24th has been kept clean since 1995, when Manchester United and Leeds United met at Elland Road.

In 2017, there was already an attempt to move matches to this date, but pressure from politicians and fans' groups brought down the motion. The explanation: the transport chaos it would cause, due to the shortage of trains operating on those dates, which this year will be aggravated by the fact that 24th December will be on Sunday.

October 25, 2023