REVEALED: Premier League clubs face MORE mayhem next season as fixture dates for 2024/25 are released… and there are ‘no obvious solutions’ to some of the clashes between European and domestic games
- There will be three fixture clashes between European and Carabao Cup weeks
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Premier League clubs face additional havoc next season, with clashes between European and domestic games and no mid-season break.
Top teams face the possibility of three clashes between midweek European games and Carabao Cup assignments.
The 2024/25 season will run from August 17 to May 25, it has been announced, with a detailed fixture schedule to follow on June 18.
There are two Champions League match rounds in the last fortnight of January and that explains why FA Cup replays were not considered viable by top-six clubs, who pushed for the change.
Some third-round replays would typically be played in the latter half of January but all replays have been scrapped, as recently revealed by Mail Sport. The Champions League group stages are expanding from six games to eight and will fill this late-January gap.
Premier League clubs face extra mayhem next season with three clashes between European and Carabao Cup match weeks
There will be eight Champions League group stage games net season – the extra two will be played roughly when FA Cup replays would have been
And while there was a reduced schedule in early-mid January to allow players to recuperate this season, no such respite will be afforded in 2024/25.
The first clash date between the Carabao Cup and Europe comes in the week commencing September 16.
That midweek will see the third round of the Carabao Cup at loggerheads with the first matches of the Champions League group stages.
And the same applies to the following week, where Carabao Cup assignments will mix with the Europa League.
It will force clubs involved in Europe to alternate their schedule, playing domestic cup games either in the week before or after they play in Europe. The first match week of the Europa League is ‘exclusive’, meaning clubs will have to play EFL Cup matches a week earlier.
Meanwhile, the sixth matchday of the Europa Conference league directly clashes with the Carabao Cup quarter-final on December 18, and there is ‘no obvious solution’ to this conundrum.
There is ‘no obvious solution’ when the Europa Conference League clahses with the Carabao Cup quarter-finals on December 18
The semi-finals of the Carabao Cup will stay two-legged, a tradition which extends back to 1961, when the competition was founded.
UEFA have been adamant that they are not responsible for date clashes and that the onus is on national associations to alleviate the pressure on the clubs’ schedules.
