With as little regard as possible for fans, Sky have announced fixture changes which will impact Arsenal games and thus the travel plans of fans.
Not least the game against Leicester City which was due to take place on Saturday February 13th, and for which I booked flights yesterday.
That has now been moved to Sunday Feb 14th and a 12 noon kick off, with less than a month’s notice for fans who will have already booked flights and hotels based on the fact the games until the end of February had already been announced in December.
The twats.
Other games changed, admittedly with a bit more notice but that doesn’t mean they’re still not twats, as follows:
- Sp*rs away will now take place on Saturday March 5th – 12.45 KO
- West Brom at home now on Saturday March 12th – 17.30 KO (may move due to FA Cup quarter-final weekend).
- Everton away will now take place on Saturday March 19th at 12.35 (an early kick-off after we play Barcelona away on March 16th).
So in conclusion, we wish the Sky TV fixture scheduling people an itch on their bollix that they can never scratch. And some kind of perpetually weeping pus-filled discharge too.
Sky has always been more like Skynet the the big blue pretty sky
I have to be in Paris early Sunday morning so I booked the latest train on Saturday night so I could go to the match… Fucking dickheads!
And I based my decision on the fact that matches later in the month had already been rescheduled for television… Knobs!
This is shocking. Second time this season that I have been caught out by TV schedulers moving fixtures about. So frustrating.
I feel your pain. I booked my flights for the home fixture against Everton a couple of years ago and the Fuckers from sky changed the date the day after I booked the flights and cost me an extra 140 quid. There should be a way to get compensated as it wrong we pay our hard earned money so them cunts can get even richer. It’s wrong and once again the fans get screwed
Must be seriously annoying for people who’ve booked flights and hotels. Inconsiderate pricks. I find illegal streams are a good way of getting some small revenge on Murdochs evil empire. I get to watch the footy and Murdoch gets none of my money. Up your hole, Rupert.
As an American (living in Canada!) this practice seems odd to me. The times/dates of games never get changed unless there is some crazy storm or other disaster. Do changes like this happen in the other European soccer leagues too?
Also American here and I’m shocked and slightly confused. What exactly is Sky? To my understanding Sky is just a TV network (or multiple networks). So saying “Sky changing fixture dates” make no sense to me.
Also bothers me that this happens pretty much every season. Very very rarely happens in American leagues.
Think of it like the blackout rules for the NFL, but in a much smaller country. All matches traditionally were at 3pm on Saturday. Most matches are still initially scheduled to be then. NO 3pm Saturday matches are televised, the idea being that people who want to see football should, you know, go to the stadium and watch it. But there are a handful of slots for televised matches at other times – Saturday at 1245 or 530, Sunday, and now Monday night and even sometimes Friday night. The TV networks that have paid such a vast fortune for the… Read more »
You are spot on with schedules in other leagues with respect to CL. And then everyone is surprised why BPL teams are not doing that well – you know, in a contest that is that tight, maybe those extra two days make a difference.
As part of the TV rights deals here in England, Sky Sports have a number of “slots” that they can put games into to televise on a given weekend. (Sky Sports being a suite of 6(?) channels, found on Sky a satellite TV subscription company). This should be done a number of months before the match, but they often pull something like this where they change the scheduled date and time less than a month before due to the changing fortunes (and therefore projected audience) of the clubs involved. By default, most games are “scheduled” in at 3pm on the… Read more »
I think we all understand why it happens, it doesn’t mean that they’re not cunts for doing it though
Cunts, yes.
Wait a minute, why does John Terry get a say in deciding schedules? Seems horribly unfair . . .
To be fair blogs, the comment people are replying to here says something along the lines of “I don’t understand why this happens”…but yes we can all agree on the last point.
Fair enough, I didn’t see the ones above, I replied from the back-end (fnarr)
Doesn’t happen quite so much in England, with Arsenal v Leicester being the obvious exception! But Spain is really bad for it. Some very strange kick off times (11pm!) & could be just over a weeks notice!
I’m a Canadian as well. Gotta say that this practice (changing games a few weeks in advance) would only happen in North American sports if there were a natural disaster or something. I understand the need to move games for cup competitions (you can’t know in advance who will have to play), but to not know which of your games are the priority match-ups earlier seems very bizarre.
Something tells me John Terry works at Sky.
COYG!!! I actually hope Diego Costa is not injured so Kos can own him all game.
Flex scheduling. It’s been in the NFL for about 10 years. Short notice too.
Yes, we blame Sky (and at other times BT Sport) for this late rescheduling, and for the badly-thought-out kick-off times, and rightly so; but to my mind at least some of the blame must lie with the Premier League (ie, the clubs, including Arsenal) for selling their soul and agreeing to a contract that allows them to do this. Surely there should be a clause in that multi-million TV contract that specifies the TV companies only have the right to reschedule matches at least 6 weeks (or some acceptable period) in advance of the actual fixture. Is that too much… Read more »
Actually Blame Burnley and the other club chairmen for setting up the Saturday 3pm ban 50+ years ago because they thought showing games on TV would mean fans would stay home and watch, instead of going to all of the other matches.
And the muppets at the FA for keeping it in place — despite all the evidence that showing a game on TV now has minimal impact on attendance at other matches.
Not living in the UK currently, had to change flights twice last year because of those twats. It’s an absolutely disgusting behaviour.
WEEEELLL, Sky Sport’s a b*tch they’re a big fat bitch, they’re the biggest bitch in the whole wide world, they’re a stupid bitch if there ever was a bitch, they’re a bitch to all the football fans!
On Monday night football they’re a bitch, on Tuesday they’re a bitch, on Wensday through Saturday they’re a bitch, then on Sunday just to be different they’re a Super Sunday King Kamehameha beeyotch!
What what what?!?!
Nice Magnum PI reference LOL
yay 4am, 445am and 545am games for us on the west coast
4AM fixtures are always the ones where I can’t decide if I want to stay up or go to bed incredibly early.
The wankers!!!! I’m going to have to rebook flights now!
Some naivety here! It’s been years since the fans actually mattered. It’s all about advertising revenue now. I wonder where Sky will be when they finally turn football into a minority sport. Fucking wankers!
Apart from inconveniencing & upsets fans with these changes, I wouldn’t be at all
surprised if this is yet another one of Sky’s desperate attempts to adversely
affect our results at a key stage of the season, this being the real reason for the
changes.
I’m not one to give Sky a break, but the Spurs and Everton games were moved by BT. Those games are on BT Sport.
Why the early kickoff after the champions league games? Every time. It seems this only happens to Arsenal.
No it’s not just Arsenal because I booked tickets to go see Barcelona and sky have changed the dates twice so we had to buy new plane tickets as well costing a fortune !!?
I know right? Our game at Shite Hart Lane is an early kickoff as well. Can’t remember the last time a game at the Emirates was an early kickoff game on a Saturday.
Could be wrong but I think it may have Liverpool at home last April.
I’m sharing this pic on the SKY facebook pages and twitter under #SKYFU
just booked and paid for a hotel and meal with 25% cancellation fee on the Sunday. Cunts
Make sure you blur any CC or private info!
I must admit, I was surprised the top of the table clash wasn’t on tv when I looked last week.
Anyway, TWATS!
… and looks like I get to try and get a refund on airfare, hotel, and tickets for the game against that lot down the road.
Hahahahaha was sad you made me laugh
These days I never book anything without seeing if sky n BT have had there pick of the tv games for that week. Absolute a**holes
Surely a club as well run as ours should have a policy of refunding fans the extra £ when it comes to having to rearrange flights, train tickets etc. Shouldn’t be hard to validate genuine cases, surely?
The early Saturday kick offs are BT no??
If so,Michael Owen has assured me that if it kicks off at 12.45, the half lengths will not change.
Should put some minds at ease
It is established fact that Sky gives absolutely zero shits for the supporters, but the Premier League holds some culpability for allowing this in the contract. Less than 30 days’ notice for a fixture change purely on a TV scheduling whim should not be allowed.
Frankly, I am more irritated with the early Saturday kick off away to Everton following Wednesday night at Barcelona.
We usually don’t perform well when it’s an early kick off! Remember when we were taught a football lesson at Chelsea, Liverpool and Man City! I don’t see us winning those games!
That’s a bummer. Seems like a regular 3pm Saturday kickoff is a rarity for Arsenal these days.
I wish haemorrhoids upon those Sky wankers.
had to book a day off last week as i have work over the weekend. fucked now.
thanks for rewarding the arm chair fans over those who go to the actual games.
Hardly a suprise these knobjockeys do it to hs every season. Hopefully a nice case of gallopingknobrot will infest their boxers one and all.
Everyone attending should print the Sky Wanker artwork blogs created and hold it up in unison when the cameras show the crowd.
I’m one of the lucky ones with not too far to travel and “only” had to swap my plans for the Saturday and Sunday, but they are still arseholes. I mean, it’s not as though Arsenal and Leicester have suddenly appeared at the top of the table, so there is absolutely no excuse for this ridiculously late notice, having already announced their TV choices till the end of February in December. My kids have also been the victims of this type of thing before, when I have had tickets to take them to a Saturday game that has then been… Read more »
Sadly, who pays the piper calls the tune!
It’s not great, unfair on travelling fans (by that I mean Leicester fans) and is too late a notice period, but there have been some worse fixture scheduling choices made for TV slots in recent memory – the Monday night game at Old Trafford last season springs to mind (no trains back, perfectly good Birmingham derby to they could have put on the Monday etc).
Can we get Red Action to arrange a card display of this picture in the stadium by those fans still able to attend?
Is this some sort of TV programme they can re-schedule at their will? Think I’ll watch a non Sky free stream instead, stick that in your pipe.
The obvious solution is to require a deadline date for schedule changes. Then fans know they can safely make plans…
i’m a television viewer and it’s apparently being done for my benefit. well, my wife asked if the match was saturday or sunday and made plans accordingly. fuck you sky.
This does actually happen in the NFL too. NBC have the right to ‘flex’ a game for their Sunday night prime time slot. For example this year Chiefs @ Chargers was scheduled for a Sunday night, but was ‘flexed’ as the Chargers and Chiefs at the time were both pretty horrible and thus got moved to the 1pm PST kick off with Bengals @ Cardinals getting the prime time slot.
Perhaps the supporters attending the game live could do a late walk-in protest?
They could leave the stadium empty at kick-off and walk in five to ten minutes late.
Sky will broadcast an empty and quiet stadium. After which, we’ll see if they’ll pull such a stunt again.
The TV watchers (like me) should just not watch the first 5 or 10 and plan to boycott the advertisers.
Any game moved to the early timeslot on a SAT is a win win for us aussies!
Any game moved to the Sunday though sucks dead donkeys dicks as its difficult to watch a game at 3am Monday morning then back up a big day at work. Wankers.
BUT cant complain too much, we do get EVERY EPL game on tv, most of them live.
This has completely cocked up my stag!!!
My side of the family are Arsenal supporters and my other half’s side (not including my other half, due to years of hard work, a stadium tour and a match against Fulham where we won 2-0) supporting Leicester.
The game was going to be a big part of the day!
Looking forward to bumping into the Sky sellers in the street at lunch. I dare you to try and sell me something!
Arsenal can’t happily lap up a big slice of that £5.whatever billion and then go and complain when the fixtures get changed.
I hate the fixture changes and the league cup and the lack of a break, but I like Ozil and Alexis too so…
Valid point. The TV money has allowed us the likes of Ozil and Alexis.
However, the bread and butter of any income stream is the fan. Surely common sense would suggest a fair amount of people will be fucked over by a dodgy call re liecester game.