Arsene Wenger has hit out at Sky for the way Arsenal’s game against Hull City was moved this weekend.
The fixture was originally scheduled for this Saturday, but after Chelsea’s progress in the Champions League, Sky shifted things around to provide Roman Abramovich’s club more time to prepare for their Gazprom sponsored semi-final against Atletico Madrid.
It means that thousands of Arsenal fans, who had booked train tickets, hotels and more, were inconvenienced with just eight days notice and Wenger says the Gunners have never been accommodated like that by the broadcasters.
“We never got any help on that front. Never,” he said. “There is no written rule. When you speak to the Premier League, it is not the Premier League. It is the television companies who help. It is not the Premier League.
“The television companies decide who plays when and some clubs have maybe better introductions with television companies. We never had and we never tried to influence the decision of Sky or any other company.
“If you want to know more, you look at the teams who have been protected since the start of the season and the teams who had the biggest rest between games. You will see and you come to your own conclusions.
“I don’t question the objectivity of the television companies but sometimes their choices don’t look very rational.
“I told you what I think about Chelsea – it is not my problem. If you want an objective view – just make your analysis between Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal, Man City, Man United and all the other teams who play in the Champions League and you will come to your own conclusions.”
The Arsenal fans who have been messed around have little or no comeback and although TV’s influence over the fixture schedules is all too obvious, there has to be some consideration for the people who are, as the mawkish television ads would tell you, the soul of the game.
C***s
I think John Terry was the cunty culprit.
F**k sky
You misspelled it!
I question their objectivity. The corrupt weasels.
Definitely. Not so much in terms of wanting to influence the results, but what will happen if people get annoyed at constant fixture changes? They’ll stay home and watch the games on TV instead. So who’s the winner? Certainly not the fans…
Agree, I question their objectivity too. However if chelski successfully lobbied the TV companies and got it changed you have to say well done, maybe our PR people should be doing the same. The real victims here are the gooners that go to away games
Not sure about that reasoning.
You’re only a stones throw away from ‘well, they paid the ref a lot more money than we were willing to, so it’s our own fault he conjured two penalties out of nothing’.
well put swiveller. this is the kind of reasoning you will generally see in discussions about poverty and politics as well these days.
I disagree swiveller. I didn’t say anything about money changing hands or anything happening illegally. Gaining the maximum advantage for your team or business within the law should be every clubs and managers priority. When David Dein sat on the FA board Arsenal often used his influence to gain advantage
Kafka
“this is the kind of reasoning you will generally see in discussions about poverty and politics as well these days”.
Could you explain that for my benefit please?
Love the fact that he didn’t reveal his analysis and asked the lazy journalist do his own. We are never getting a manager as classy & intelligent as him.
Champions League teams never play Sunday/Tuesday, I think it is actually a written rule in the TV deals so Arsene is a little bit mistaken here.
Look at the idiots downvoting the truth.
“If Arsene said it, it must be true!”
Go against the grain in the comments here and that’s usually the result, which is surprising considering the blog itself normally gives such a balanced and realistic view…… in my opinion
Maybe it’s time a fixed date is introduced beyond which Sky/BT can’t change fixture dates or times. Personally I’d go with no changes from either a month or 6 weeks before a game. Still gives the TV companies some discretion but doesn’t piss off the majority of fans!
I salute your faith in the world and justice.
The most frustrating thing is that no journalist will touch this story either because they either work for News Corp papers, which obviously has links with BskyB, or they’re on Sunday Supplement every weekend, gossiping about vaguely football related bollocks. These are the same journalists that were quick to criticise our ticket prices and how it was unfair for the fans and a few had a problem when we cancelled the Everton game (I think it was Everton) because of the weather last year. Duplicitous cunts, most (not all) of them
spot on
Very Very well said mate!
I am not at all impressed with the title of the article.
Cue the Mourinho counter-attack Will it be “Wenger the voyeur” or “Wenger the Specialist”?
ATMA will thrash them, don’t worry.
Is what you think about Chelsea that they are all C*nts, Wenger?
I think what Wenger is trying to say is that if Chelsea were faced with THIS…
– 8th December (Sunday) 4:00pm Everton H Barclays Premier League
– 11th December (Wedneday) 19.45pm Napoli A UEFA Champions League
– 14th December (Saturday) 12.45am Manchester City A Barclays Premier League
… then Abromavich would figure out a way to sort it out with the Television companies.
The scenario here though is that if Sky had moved the Everton fixture to the Sunday before the date of the Napoli game had been confirmed, if the Napoli game was then set to be played on the Tuesday, the Everton match WOULD be moved back to the Saturday.
roman’s first signing was peter kenyon…..not crespo…. not cech…
Same old fuckin same old as far as those cnuts r concerned.
Since blogs didn’t mention it , the Hull-Arsenal fixture has been move to Sunday
Sky should pay compensation to those who can no longer attend.
It’s not as if one can take out insurance against sure an event occurring either or can you?
I watch the games on Tv from abroad, so without them I’d really have a struggle, but fuck them anyway. It sucks that so many of the awesome away fans have been screwed over; it puts an unnecessary bad spin on things.
You don’t need Sky to watch our games, there are numerous live feeds on the internet (something Sky were unhappy about, tried to sue the companies and ended up losing).
Unfortunately, it’s just easier watching things on Sky Sports as the feed is constant rather than having to search for a half decent one. Personally, I spend a lot of time looking for a half decent one or use my membership to listen on Arsenal Player.
Been in India for the india for the last 3 and a half weeks and have not watched a single Arsenal game! Reason being that the TV rights for Arsenal games are expensive! Cnuts!
Bollocks! StarSports are very well covering the EPL games including many Arsenal games as well. Sometimes even paralelly showing two games on two of their HD channels. Other than that you can always stream the games online.
Yeah.. But not all the states has a proper connection to effiiciently stream the games, now does it?? John Dykes and his bunch of cunts. He was a good host but now, even he talks about the usual crap about Arsenal that all of them does. Such a waste.
if you do clean n good business nobody cares to know about it. people are ready to follow the rich n powerful people in our society. nothing good comes from Arsenal bcos they follows too much of the rules n regulations governing the game.Man utd will not play champions league next season but its no news but Arsenal not qualifying is more than news.
Sorry, I don’t want to defend these journalists, but where exactly do you see the “Arsenal not qualifying” bit?
In the words of Danny Glover, “I’m too old for this!” Those sky c***s!
In all fairness to the FA, when a team plays on a Tuesday, they never play on the Sunday before, just as teams that play in the Europa cup on the Thursday always play on the Sunday after. There have been numerous occasions when we have had a match moved to Sunday for Sky with a note against the fixture that it will revert back to the Saturday if we (or the opponents) are involved in a match that would be on the following Tuesday eg FA Cup replay.. So Sky were wrong to move their game to Sunday in… Read more »
To be honest, have never had Sky or ever wished for it. Their overlord is a cunt of the highest order. Thank fuck for the internet.
I can’t wait to see how people twist this into Wenger whinging and making excuses, when the only people who are genuinely fucked over by this is the fans, the people the press, and the authorities, and the television companies keep telling us are the most important part of the game.
Off topic. Roberto Martinez was reading the “How To Finish Not Top 4 – The guide to shitting it away” written by Sp*rs FC
had to cancel my WBA tickets for the same reason….. 🙁
As much as I love wengers class and guile I do think us arsenal fans have an unhealthy rejection of any kind of reasoning. If teams above us in the league, with unlimited resources and squads full of international players, lose a game then they jump on any reason they can to explain it. I’ve heard Maurine plenty of times bemoan the schedule of his teams games. I’ve heard Rodgers and pretty much every other team complain about injuries and even that prat pardew slag his team off after losing a game saying ‘that’s not a shadow of the team… Read more »
I agree. The media have been jizzing themselves that we lost big away to Liverpool, ManCity, Chelsea & Everton but the fact that we didn’t lose to any of them at the Grove seems to have slipped their minds.
I feel we gooners act like pundits. We gauge our performance against the invincibles all the time. Many years back i was watching a league cup against wigan and was chatting in Orkut community of Arsenal. Walcott prompted an own goal, while i was jumping, many others were subdued. The reason, it was an own goal and not a proper arsenal goal. This kind of attitude is reflecting when we demand to change the manager. First it was David moyes, along with him Laudrup (remember him) and lately Martinez. Martinez might be good, but he is no better than tony… Read more »
Don’t forget, gents #YouAreFootball
😐
Is it possible that our wonderful away support will deploy a huge banner saying “Suck Fky” that would be placed in a fashion that makes it unavoidable to the Murdochian cameras? Another option would be “Skrew Scy Sports Channel” or something of that order.
Sky wankers. Remember back in the day getting Sky in the early days of the PL. All the footy was on Skysports 1. Then, a year or so later they started showing international games on new channel called Skysports 2 (when they were shown on SS1 previously. Which was an extra few quid. Then, they started sneakily shoving a few more games on SKysports 2. They soon realised that they could shove more on other ‘new’ channels and charge much more for the same amount of games. All over the world, TV companies only seem to have the rights for… Read more »
well Sky will no longer have champions league rights as of 2015, they will ALL belong to BT.
Being a fan who flys in from Belfast for a few matches a season I would be well narked off if I had booked flights, hotels, trains only to have the whole thing moved 2 weeks before the match. I get that Chelsea cant play Sunday and Tuesday but would it really have hurt Sky not to have a game at 14:05 on Sunday and keep us playing Hull on Saturday? Il be over at the last home match of the season against West Brom. Cant wait!
Bet they’ll give us another mid-day kick-off, the pricks
The tv companies don’t give a toss about the fans, but can we really say any different about bout those that run our club.
A 3% rise in season ticket prices when top of the league seems more than cynical to me. The only time they will give a monkeys about the paying public is when they stop turning up in numbers simple as that.
Ill*min*ti c*nts… it’d be a challenge to expect any better.
Tittle of this news article (Wenger questions sky)
Are you sure it wasn’t flamini??
well said arsene but expect the cu*ts to come out all guns blazing
would be great if someone actually did what Wenger asked and looked at the analysis ? would make great interlul reading Blogs?
Sky should reimburse the fans.
This is unacceptable.
What does Chelsea’s involvement in the Champion’s League have to do with moving an Arsenal-Hull game I will never know…
Why can’t Arsenal and Chelsea BOTH play their games on the Saturday?
Sky loses a game on Sunday or maybe they show a different sport in that slot…
I have to say this kind of crap would not happen in North American sports. This is so disrespectful to the fans.
COYG!!!
A Canadian Gooner
David, it happens to a lesser degree with the NFL–the league can move games into prime time on Sundays with only two weeks notice. They call it flex schedule. The change, even a few hours, can totally fuck your flight & hotel–plus you probably need to take off work on the Monday. The NFL’s reimbursement for the fans is to tell us to pound sand.
Chow Chin Baz say: When provider accept money from customer, he got right to choose position.
Paper over cracks.
blogs, do the analysis please..pleasee
Gotta love how Wenger didn’t mention the Welsh Ape’s former club!