Arsenal schedule debacle with Bayern Munich in women's Champions League and Crystal Palace in League Cup is telling on attitudes to women's football


Arsenal have been at the forefront of progress in women’s football for some time. They are the only English team to win the women’s Champions League, hold the most top-flight domestic titles, and broke the Women’s Super League attendance record three times last season.
This campaign, they announced that the Emirates Stadium would be the women’s team’s main home ground - hosting eight home league matches, three Champions League group matches, and any knockouts if they progressed.
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Hide AdOn the face of it, the women’s team are being put on a pedestal at a similar level to the men’s. But in the past few days, it’s become clear there is still much further to go. Following the draw for the men’s league cup quarterfinals, Arsenal have been scheduled to host Crystal Palace at the Emirates on December 18. The problem? The women were due to play against Bayern Munich in the Champions League there on the same night, with tickets having been sold for the fixture already.


In the club’s statement about the men’s fixture being confirmed, a line at the end read: “We are liaising with UEFA, and further details regarding our UEFA Women’s Champions League match against Bayern Munich will be announced in due course.”
It leaves the women’s team in limbo. The matchup against Bayern, a repeat of their 2022/23 quarterfinal (which was played at the Emirates), was one of the flagship games of the group stage and now they have no idea where it will take place.
Let’s be clear - this is not as black and white as the men thoughtlessly evicting the women from the Emirates at the first opportunity. To an extent, the scheduling clash has been out of their hands. One suggestion was to swap the Arsenal v Palace match on the 19th, but Tottenham and Manchester United play in London that night - so policing restrictions make playing both concurrently impossible. They also can’t move the dates of Arsenal v Palace because playing on Thursday would mean both teams had only one rest day before their next match, and moving forward to Tuesday would be too close to Palace’s game against Brighton the previous Sunday.
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Hide AdArsenal have no other times available in surrounding weeks due to their packed schedule. The women’s game also cannot move date because it has to be played at the same time as the other group fixture between Juventus and Vålerenga. So it’s not that the men are being deliberately obstinate or obstructive to the women - both games have to take place on Wednesday, December 18.
However, that doesn’t mean the automatic solution should be shunting the women’s team out of the Emirates for a critical match. Their other home ground Meadow Park doesn’t meet UEFA regulations, so they would need an exemption from the governing body to host the game there instead - and that’s not to mention the number of fans who have already bought tickets at the Emirates and might not be able to fit into the non-league stadium. It’s telling that all the discussion so far has been around where the women can move to, rather than any question of whether the men should move instead.
The only reason the men’s quarter-final is set for the Emirates rather than Selhurst Park is because Arsenal’s ball came out of the bowl first instead of Palace’s.
What is a better case for first dibs on the stadium out of these:
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Hide Ad- A) Having had the fixture scheduled there for months, already having sold tickets, and not having an alternative ground available that meets regulations or...
- B) Having your ball drawn out of the bowl before your opponent’s?
It would obviously be unconventional to reverse the fixture and it would be a shame for Arsenal’s men to lose their home advantage. However, let’s take another multiple choice question.
Who is more in need of a boost from the home advantage and atmosphere:
- A) A team in their final Champions League group stage match, who have already lost 5-2 to these opponents in the reverse fixture or...
- B) A team whose opponents are currently struggling to stay outside the relegation zone, and who they beat by an aggregate score of 6-0 in their two meetings last season?
This scheduling clash requires a sacrifice by someone. For decades, female footballers have had to make sacrifices. Manchester United’s women’s team were forced out of their building at Carrington to make room for the men’s while refurbishment work is under way. Reading have withdrawn their women’s team from the Championship to help cope with their financial troubles.
And if you ask any grassroots-playing girl up and down the country, they’ll recall at least one time they’ve had to move pitches, swap training sessions, and jump through various hoops to accommodate their club’s men’s side. It’s not the male players’ fault - but for so many, the situation Arsenal now find themselves in is incredibly familiar.
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Hide AdIt would require flexibility from Palace, Arsenal, and the organisers of the men’s cup, but moving the venue of that fixture would be a solution - and it would be a welcome change to see the men take the hit to help the women’s team reach their potential.
This situation also has to, for the second time this season, raise questions over organisation, scheduling, and communication in the women’s game. Chelsea women’s league fixture against Manchester United had to be postponed indefinitely after a Champions League group stage draw meant the Blues would have had to play two games in three days if both fixtures went ahead.
English organisers had asked UEFA to make sure no English teams had to play on that Tuesday, foreseeing that a clash was possible. However, the European body pointed out - and reasonably so - that their match calendar had been published for more than a year, and that its regulations meant the three English teams in the competition could not play on the same night.
That made moving the European game impossible. The parallels between that situation and this one are obvious; the Women’s Champions League calendar and men’s league cup calendar were revealed long in advance. They can be found in seconds by anyone with an internet connection. Unless Arsenal managed to get knocked out by Bolton or Preston North End, they were always going to have a fixture in this gameweek. So how on earth didn’t it occur to anybody that there might be a clash - and if it did, why was there no plan in place to deal with it?
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Hide AdThis scheduling conflict is more complex than it appears at first glance - and it’s not fair or accurate to paint the men’s team as callous villains, thoughtlessly shoving the women’s team aside as soon as it benefits them. But this episode speaks to how much further organising bodies have to go to reach the game’s full potential.
Scheduling headaches like this detract from the actual football played on the pitch, create a needless animosity between fans and clubs - or even fans of the women’s and men’s teams - and just shouldn’t be a problem in 2024. It reflects more widely on the insanely packed state of the men’s and women’s calendar that there is so little wiggle room in when these fixtures are played.
It also raises an important point: women’s teams shouldn’t be treated as an afterthought or optional extra. What message does it send to players and fans that they are graciously permitted into the ‘men’s stadium’, but can just as easily be removed if the men’s matches demand it? Arsenal announced in May that the Emirates would be the “main home” of its women’s team for the 2024/25 season - but what kind of home turfs you out to fit someone else in?
The solution isn’t clear. But what is clear is that in terms of giving women’s football the place it deserves, organisers must do better.
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