5 Ways to improve the annual football calendar in England

The 2019-20 Premier League season has featured a number of firsts, from VAR to games being shown on Amazon Prime, but one of the more interesting changes has come in the form of the recent February winter break.

Unlike the rest of Europe’s big leagues, England’s top-flight has never had a winter break before; the Premier League’s giants have a packed schedule over Christmas while Serie A, the Bundesliga and LaLiga all shut down during that time.

2019-20, however, has seen each team granted around a week off during February, with the schedule being “split” to satisfy the demands of TV companies. But is this the best that English football could do to help their top teams compete with the best in Europe – not to mention the hopes of the national side in summer tournaments?

The answer is no – and here are 5 ways in which the English football calendar could be improved further.

---

#1 Scrap the Carabao Cup

Scrapping the EFL Cup - last won by Manchester City - could free up essential space in the calendar

Both of English football’s cup competitions have slipped in terms of importance to the Premier League’s clubs over the past couple of decades, mainly since breaking into – and staying in – the Premier League itself became far more financially lucrative than a good run in either of the cups. But while the FA Cup is massively historic and has a ton of tradition and folklore behind it, would anyone really miss the Carabao Cup if it were to vanish?

Not only do its games come thick and fast at the start of the season – when most fans are just hoping for their clubs to gain traction in whichever league they’re a part of – but the majority of England’s top clubs don’t even take it seriously any more, preferring to use it to blood youngsters or help to rehabilitate players returning from long-term injuries.

Take this season’s finalists, for instance; Aston Villa are embroiled in a fight against relegation from the Premier League right now but have also made the Carabao Cup final. Realistically, the club’s power-brokers would much prefer the Villains to lose the cup final and remain in the Premier League – and more importantly, so would the majority of their fans.

What of the lower league clubs entering into the competition? Well, given the packed schedules of the Championship, League One and League Two, they probably wouldn’t mind if it vanished either; an FA Cup run is far more lucrative both in terms of press and finance, anyway.

Essentially, the Carabao Cup has gone from being a decent secondary domestic cup competition to an afterthought at best and a nuisance at worst – scrapping it entirely would free up space in a packed fixture schedule, and do everyone a favour.

#2 Give the clubs a proper Christmas break

Tottenham faced Brighton on Boxing Day in 2019 - but should England's clubs be playing over the Christmas period?

English football – unlike the rest of Europe’s big leagues – has always had a packed Christmas schedule, and the truth is that many fans would feel lost without plenty of games to watch during the festive period. But in reality, should the Premier League’s biggest clubs really have to play so many games across such a short period of time?

Look at Tottenham Hotspur’s 2019 Christmas schedule, for example. Jose Mourinho’s side played Chelsea on December 22nd, Brighton on December 26th, Norwich on December 28th and Southampton on January 1st. That’s a ridiculous 4 games in just 10 days, and obviously, Spurs weren’t the exception to the rule – all of the Premier League’s clubs had a similar schedule, with Liverpool’s being even worse due to their involvement in the FIFA Club World Cup.

And the schedule doesn’t get any better in the lower leagues; EFL Championship side Nottingham Forest, for example, played games on the 21st, 26th and 29th of December and also on the 1st of January.

With schedules like that, it’s no wonder that teams and players end up suffering burnout and injuries – and are often more tired than their European counterparts when it comes to the return of the Champions League and Europa League in February. So what could be done differently?

Well, it may hurt the feelings of fans – and of television companies – but it’d probably be a good idea for English football to fall into line with the rest of Europe and give their sides a proper Christmas break. 2019, for instance, could’ve seen the break begin after the weekend of the 22nd and 23rd of December, extending until the FA Cup games on the weekend of January 4th.

That would’ve given the clubs at least 12 days off, with three games being missed. So where could they be played instead? In those pesky midweek slots usually taken up by the EFL Cup, which would preferably be scrapped. Not only would this idea bring English football into line with the rest of Europe, but it’d give the players a chance to spend Christmas with their families, too.

#3 Scrap FA Cup replays between Premier League and EFL Championship clubs

Scrapping FA Cup replays between Premier League and EFL Championship sides could ease their burden of fixtures

One point of contention in recent seasons has been the tradition of having replays for drawn FA Cup ties, with many pundits and managers – particularly those in charge of the bigger Premier League clubs who are also involved in European competition – suggesting that these replays simply add unneeded games to an already congested fixture schedule.

Scrapping FA Cup replays altogether has been suggested on numerous occasions, but it’s an idea that usually gets shot down for a pretty logical reason. Basically, as the FA Cup is entered by almost every team in England – right down to semi-professional sides who can play multiple preliminary rounds before entering the first round proper – it can prove to be an essential financial boost for smaller clubs.

How does this happen? If a club from outside the football league manages to make it to the third round and draws a Premier League side, the money they can make from a potential television rights fee as well as 45% of the gate revenue from the match can be a massive game-changer. And of course, if a smaller club can hold a Premier League giant to a draw at home – gaining a replay at a much bigger stadium – then that chunk of money only grows.

Nobody would want to see smaller clubs lose the potential to make that kind of money, so to find a solution, what if a rule was put into place that if both sides agreed, replays for ties between Premier League sides or EFL Championship sides could be scrapped, with the tie being decided in a single match?

Giving the teams the option to either keep or scrap a replay would ensure the playing field would stay level, and it could allow for less fixture congestion for the Premier League and EFL Championship’s clubs. Sure, clubs who draw a lower-level side may still have to face a replay – but that’d be down to the luck of the draw.

#4 Relax the ruling on no televised games at 3 pm on a Saturday

Chelsea's recent win over Spurs could've been timed better had the blackout on 3 pm games on a Saturday been relaxed

Many fans of the Premier League who live outside England are often baffled at the fact that their English counterparts can’t simply tune in to their club’s 3 pm Saturday game on one of the various television channels that offer coverage of the competition. After all, if you go to any other country, you’re likely to be able to choose to watch whichever 3 pm Saturday game you like.

The reason that fans can’t do this in England is because of an archaic ‘blackout’ rule that states that no football game can be shown on television on a Saturday at 3 pm. This rule was introduced back in the 1960s, with the feeling being that having top-flight games televised on a Saturday at 3 pm would negatively influence the attendance of lower league games that were not being shown on TV.

Of course, things have changed a lot since then, with television coverage of football growing immeasurably. As late as the 1990s, the Premier League would see most of its fixtures take place on a Saturday at 3 pm, with a lone fixture to be televised on a Sunday and Monday. Now though, we’ve got multiple televised games on Saturdays – usually, one match at 12:30 pm and one at 5:30 pm – and the same on Sundays, meaning 3 pm Saturday kick-offs have almost become a rarity.

The knock-on effect of this is that some clubs simply don’t have as much time to prepare for their games; Tottenham for instance recently played Aston Villa on Sunday, February 16th at 2 pm – a televised game – before facing RB Leipzig in European action on Wednesday 19th February. And rather than playing at 3 pm on Saturday 22nd February, they instead faced Chelsea at 12:30 pm on that day’s early kick-off.

If the television companies were allowed to show 3 pm games on a Saturday though, they could then afford to go back to the schedule we saw in the 1990’s, with single games on a Sunday and Monday – with fans allowed to choose which games to watch through an interactive service as we’ve seen used by the Champions League over the years.

Would this affect the attendance of lower league games? Perhaps, but then fans can already illegally stream Premier League games on a Saturday anyway, meaning that fans of top-flight clubs would likely not attend those lower league games regardless. Either way, there are enough fans of lower league clubs to ensure those games would still be well-attended, even if the ‘blackout’ was scrapped – and so for the good of the fixture list, it should be.

#5 A blanket ban on club friendlies and tours in May and June during years without international tournaments

Overseas friendlies, like this one between Chelsea and New England Revolution, should be scrapped during the months of May and June

One problem that English football could face if they were to look to use the prior suggestions to improve the calendar when it comes to fixture congestion could be the insane drive for money that the Premier League’s clubs have always displayed.

Essentially, it’s theorised by many fans and pundits that if the Premier League’s clubs were granted a longer break during the season, then they’d probably attempt to take their sides on lucrative overseas tours – most likely to the Far East – to play friendly matches with local teams rather than give their players rest.

In fact, this kind of thing already happens; last May for instance saw Chelsea head to the USA – even before they’d faced off with Arsenal in the Europa League final – to face MLS side New England Revolution in a friendly match.

While the game was put together with good intentions, to raise money for a charity supporting anti-Semitism, it was almost certainly a game that the Blues didn’t need and sure enough, midfielder Ruben Loftus-Cheek suffered a serious injury during the action that has sidelined him throughout the current campaign.

That’s why it’d be a good idea for the Premier League and the FA to get together to place a blanket ban on clubs going on overseas tours during the months of May and June – in years without international tournaments of course – and only allowing them to commence pre-season training during the latter part of that period instead.

Clubs could still head overseas to take part in lucrative friendly games, but not until far later on in the summer, hopefully easing the load on their players and giving them a much-needed rest before a new season would commence.