Chelsea and Manchester United’s Women’s Super League match next Sunday may have to be hastily rearranged with just a week’s notice after the release of the Women’s Champions League group-stage fixtures, leaving fans and the clubs frustrated.
Uefa announced on Saturday morning that Chelsea’s opening Group B fixture will be at home to Real Madrid on Tuesday 8 October, just two days after their scheduled fixture at Kingsmeadow, which is understood to have already sold out.
Further complicating the standoff, the fixture has been selected for live broadcast in the UK by Sky Sports. That broadcast pick was announced more than a month ago, on 21 August.
Chelsea and the Women’s Professional Leagues Limited [WPLL], the new body that organises the WSL, had both requested that Chelsea’s Champions League opener be scheduled later in the week but Uefa is standing by its decision.
Uefa pointed out that its match calendar was published more than a year ago and that its regulations make it clear that all three English clubs in the competition cannot play on the same night, adding in a statement: “Uefa highlighted the two possible match days available in every match week and communicated it to national associations, leagues and clubs to allow advance planning.
“For the Women’s Champions League group stage draw, there are two well-established draw principles concerning teams from the same national association. The first prevents teams from the same national association from being drawn into the same group and the second pairs two teams, in this case the highest seeds Arsenal and Chelsea, to ensure that they play on different days of every match week. These principles have been clearly communicated in advance and have been common practice since the introduction of the Women’s Champions League group stage in the 2021-22 season.”
Chelsea and the WPLL, on grounds of player welfare, are arguing that players should not be expected to play twice in just over 48 hours, so have been seeking a solution.
Real Madrid are in action in their domestic league in Spain much earlier, with their home fixture against Valencia already having been scheduled for the night of Friday 4 October, four days before their Champions League opener.
European football’s governing body outlined before Friday’s group-stage draw that Arsenal and Chelsea would be scheduled to play on different nights. England is the only nation with three teams involved in this season’s Women’s Champions League. Arsenal and Manchester City’s opening fixtures have been scheduled for Wednesday 9 October.
Talks were continuing between Chelsea, Manchester United, the WPLL and Sky Sports on Saturday to try to find a resolution and a new date for the WSL match will need to be found.
The international women’s fixture calendar has also been the subject of widespread debate in recent years. The group stages of Europe’s elite women’s club competition is getting under way in October, less than two weeks after the qualifying rounds concluded on Thursday night.
Supporters have been left exasperated at having only 10 days’ notice for the opening rounds of fixtures, complicating their travel plans.
