Jonas Eidevall has criticised this weekend's last-minute Chelsea postponement

Every word Arsenal boss said on 'amateurish' scheduling after 'damaging' Chelsea postponement

Arsenal boss Jonas Eidevall has criticised the last-minute postponement of this weekend's WSL clash between Arsenal and Chelsea

05 Oct 2024, 09:43 by Beth Lindop · football.london

Arsenal boss Jonas Eidevall has slammed the "amateurish" scheduling that led to Chelsea's Women's Super League (WSL) clash with Manchester United being postponed at just a week's notice and has called on governing bodies to give more consideration to players and fans when organising the calendar.

The Women’s Professional Leagues Limited (WPLL), who took over the running of the top two tiers of the English women's game in August, confirmed last weekend that this Sunday's clash at Kingsmeadow would not go ahead due to Chelsea's participation in the UEFA Women's Champions League. The Blues' group game at home to Real Madrid has been scheduled for just two days after the United game was due to take place - on Tuesday, October 8 - with a new date for the WSL fixture to be announced in due course.

In a statement last week, the WPLL said: "We apologise for any inconvenience to fans. In this instance, we have to put player welfare first. However, Eidevall, whose Arsenal team are also competing in the Champions League this season, has criticised the way the situation has been handled.

Speaking on Friday, the Swede said: “It’s not a good situation. There are 16 teams involved in the Champions League Group Stage. How many of those teams are playing on Sunday the 16th of October? We are, so that’s one. If it was only us it would be an Arsenal problem, but it’s also Manchester City playing. So it tells you that the only teams are playing are English teams.

"The only other team that was scheduled to play on the Sunday was Chelsea. So out of the 16 teams, 13 teams were scheduled to play on the Friday or Saturday, and the three English teams were all scheduled to play on the Sunday. With each of those teams having a 50 percent chance or risk, depending on how you see it, to play their game on the Tuesday. That has been the information that has been there for months.

“That we have a league organisation that doesn’t act proactively on these matters, it’s damaging for the fans. This time it doesn’t concern Arsenal fans but it does concern other clubs in the league. The fans are the backbone to what we’re trying to build, and one of the biggest reasons to what we’re doing and where we are. I think that it is simply unacceptable to have people’s money and time treated in that way beforehand, and it’s simply not good enough from the league.

“Then you come to the second part and say ‘do the league want the English club teams to be successful at European level?’ I would hope the answer to that would be yes, but the action shows differently. It shows that this is not one of their priorities, to have the club teams be successful. That is very negative for English women’s club football. It’s very important that this is the first time that three English teams reached the group stage, and that should be something that we should celebrate.

“Instead, it becomes a problem, and I know this time it’s Arsenal, Chelsea, City, but actually it’s very important for the whole league that we are successful in Europe, because we can improve the coefficient. It’s gonna mean for seasons to come that it also gets better for other English teams that qualify for the European tournaments."

He added: "Then my third thing with this is that now obviously it’s even worse for us, because of this amateurish behaviour with not having a proactive plan, and taking away a game like Chelsea’s and postponing that. It now puts us into a situation where we play Sunday, we then play Wednesday away against Bayern Munich, who doesn’t play Sunday. They play Saturday because they have a league organisation that sees the value of getting their club teams a better position. And then we play Saturday against Chelsea at the Emirates and we have considerably less preparation time than the opponents. We are handling a sporting disadvantage in two huge games for us.

“Now, you know me, and even better you know my players and team. We’re not a team who are gonna lie down and give up just because situations are tough. We’re gonna dig deeper than we have ever done before and we’re gonna try and fuel our performances from that.

“But what needs to change, I think the approach to Champions League football and the proactiveness with the respect to the supporters, it has to change. And it’s not good enough to blame it on UEFA, because everyone across Europe has had the same information for so long. And the only one that hasn’t acted on that information is the WSL.”