Next seasons fixtures will be released on 17th June.
Officials from the Premier League and the Football League
are meeting this week to draw up the fixture lists for the
2009/10 campaign.
Apart from identifying other local events that would need to be considered by
each club's local police force and ensuring neighbouring clubs avoid home
fixtures on the same day fixture list compilers ensure:
-
Wherever possible clubs should have no more than two
successive home (or away) fixtures, excluding cup draws.
-
All clubs should have an alternating sequence of home and
away Saturday fixtures at both the beginning and end of the
season.
-
Any club away on Boxing Day should be at home on New
Year's day and vice versa. Local derbies are avoided on these
dates but equally distance of journeys should be minimised. If
possible, clubs should have an equal number of home and away
fixtures on Bank Holidays, if applicable.
-
Clubs playing in the Europa League on a Thursday will have
the option of moving a Saturday fixture to a Sunday so, where
possible, these should be home matches.
-
A draft list is produced for initial review by the
compilation team who consider - along with many other aspects
- date requests and pairings which have not been
satisfied.
-
A second review is performed by the fixtures working party
in consultation with club representatives, the FA and the
National Supporters Association.
-
It is almost impossible to create a schedule which meets
all the requests but the compilers will spend hours locked
away studying the draft fixtures to minimise the problems and
ensure no one club, league or set of supporters is unduly
penalised.