Arsenal have confirmed that Arsene Wenger’s squad will play Manchester City in Beijing’s iconic Bird’s Nest stadium on the Chinese leg of a globetrotting pre-season tour.
Having toured the Far East last summer, in a move which is understood to have been very successful on a commercial level, Ivan Gazidis and his team have been very pro-active in arranging a follow-up visit to the region.
The game will take place on July 27th, three weeks after the final of Euro 2012 and on the same day as the opening ceremony of the London Olympic Games. The Premier League is not expected to start until August 18th affording Pat Rice plenty of time to organise a few shuttle-runs in the Alps.
Speaking to the Arsenal website Gazidis confirmed the exciting details:
“Further to our hugely successful visit to Hangzhou in 2011, everyone at Arsenal is extremely excited to once again be visiting China this year.
“We enjoy huge support in Asia and by playing a match in Beijing, we will once again be bringing the Club close to our loyal fans in China. The players and staff had an amazing time in China last year and we are all looking forward to visiting this great country again in July.
“The match against Manchester City is sure to be an exciting spectacle, with many great players from both sides playing in front of thousands of supporters in the wonderful ‘Bird’s Nest’ Stadium. It is also fitting that two English clubs are playing each other on the opening day of the London 2012 Olympics, in the stadium which hosted the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.”
Further friendlies are expected to take place in both Hong Kong and Nigeria as Arsenal look to make up the revenue lost from having to cancel the Emirates Cup weekend due to police shortages around the capital during the Olympics.
I’m proper excited about this :p the atmosphere in Hangzhou was amazing, hoping this’ll be just as good 😀
It does leave people like me with a massive dilemma though. Do I watch the opening ceremony of the Olympics that may be in the UK for the only time in my lifetime or do I watch my beloved Arsenal take on City in one of the best stadiums the world has ever seen.
Why couldn’t it have been the day before?
New pre-Olympicg opening event, all the way from China:
“Kicking Spectacularly Overpaid Chinless Benchwarmer Samir Nasri Right Up The Hole”?
Kick hard. Kick often.
Can’t you record one and watch it later…?
The olympics, or the kicking of Samir Nasri?
1: some sub-X-Factor crapola, followed by a bunch of people in tracksuits walking around a track, carrying flags, lasts fucking hours. maybe a firework after the last spectator has died of boredom
vs
2: the arsenal
what was the dilemma again?
When will they drag Paul Macartney on to do his beatles medley, finishing with all the other performers coming back on stage to join in Hey bleeding Jude? Or am I confusing it with the closing ceremony.
Olympic opening ceremony, what a load of bollocks! If I wanted to see 500 people wandering around in tracksuits I’d go to a job centre in Manchester!
Beijing time is 8 hours earlier. So you should be able to watch both. Have your cake and eat it to.
What crap scheduling. I have nothing against the match and it’s intentions, but to time it with the opening of the Olympics is more than a little daft.
There´s an 8h time difference, therefore it´s easy to watch the match at noon and then enjoy the Olympics
Watch the Olympics by all means. Shouldn’t stop you Peking at the football now and again.
God that’s shit.
If anyone starts throwing stuff at you for your awful Peking puns, don’t forget to duck
In fairness there is an eight hour time difference. If the game kicks-off at 8pm in China that’ll be midday here and several hours before the camp dance-off gets going in Stratford. I doubt it’ll clash. And if it does. Sack the board. Sack Wenger. Make Bendtner captain…or something.
Bendtner? What, are you crazy? We can’t have a player-manager…
Make Chamakh captain and Bendtner manager. It’s obvious.
I went to my local Chinese the other night and there was no time difference …apart from the 15 minutes in took me to get there. I can only assume someone is pulling your leg.
Dat‘s a good one. Much more,can‘t wait for d stop over friendlies in Nigera.
I am really excited.
But that is because of the porn I have in the other tab.
you watching the 5-2 match?
Huh? We won a match 5-2? I haven’t heard about this.
How did I miss that?
Who did we beat?
Norwich reserves, nothing to see, move along
we f**ked some cunts , Hardcore Pr0n
Just got home early and stuck the game on again, their Pen shouldn’t have stood because of encroachment by players into the area. As the rule clearly states, the penalty should have been retaken until sp*rs miss it.
Man city are still a bunch of cunts though. Except Kolo. He looks like a big teddy bear to me.
Come on….
Clichy’s alright too!
Pat Rice won’t be there to organize shuttle runs. Isn’t he retiring end of this season?
He is retiring to concentrate on his shuttling…. 😛
Hong Kong and Japan?
Oh joy.
That should be a big money maker shouldn’t it! I’ll be the board are grinning like Cheshire cats over this.
I’m all for increasing our exposure in different markets. That said…. please come to America!!!! I will drive to anywhere in the US so I can watch my beloved Gunners in person.
In other news, I don’t give a shit.
Shame Jason Crowe isn’t still with us, he’d have love it in the Birds Nest. Maybe we’ll sign Chris Eagles or Michael Ballack(bird) to take with us.
Good bye and sorry.
That was a bit of a turkey.
Please kill me
Is it too much to hope for a brazilian tour with the 2014 WC and the 2016 Olympics on the horizon?
This is great news. We should make a fuck load of money selling park shirts. Who wants to bet that he gets a start that day?
the chinese will be racing to buy the korean internationals shirts -.-
Your either an ignorant frog or a racist one.
Is there supposed to be a friendly in Korea as well? I’m mainly curious because my friends are getting married out there round about then, but now I can’t find anything…
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