Memories of Santa Claus, 140 years of EPL tradition broken...Boxing Day, the only game against Manchester United Newcastle this year
Nov 01, 2025
|
|
|
The EPL secretariat announced on the 1st (Korea time) that only one EPL match will be held on Boxing Day this year. In other words, the remaining nine games will be played on a day other than Boxing Day, except for one game in the 18th round of the EPL between Manchester United and Newcastle in the 2025-2026 season at Old Trafford in Manchester, England, at 8 p.m. local time on the 26th. As usual, seven games (Nottingham-Man City, Brentford-Bonmouth, Arsenal-Brighton, Liverpool-Wolverhampton, Burnley-Everton, West Ham-Fullam, Chelsea-Aston Villa) will be held on Saturday, the 27th, and two games (Sunderland-Liz, Palace-Tottenham) will be held on Sunday, the 28th.
The EPL explained that it was an inevitable reduction as the number of weekend matches decreased due to the expansion of the European club competition.
Boxing Day is an expression that refers to December 26, the day after Christmas, and the Commonwealth country designates this day as a holiday. It originated from the mid-19th century when lords presented serfs with 'Box' filled with daily necessities and money after Christmas parties.
The 19th century was the time when English football established current soccer rules and systems and promoted professionalization in earnest. Since then, it has been the daily life of working-class soccer fans to visit the soccer field on the next day after spending Christmas with their families. Starting with Boxing Day, EPL provided fans with enough attractions by launching 'murder schedule'. Numerous Korean Premier Leaguers, including Park Ji-sung and Son Heung-min (LAFC), experienced the fierceness of the Boxing Day. In particular, Son Heung-min played for Tottenham from 2015 to this year, and was nicknamed 'Sonta Claus' after seeing his strong side on Boxing Day.
|
From the 2024-2025 season, more teams will participate in the European Champions League, Europa League and Conference League, changing the overall schedule to play the league rather than the group stage, increasing the overall schedule from six weeks to 10 weeks. The conference league will also be held on December 18, a week before Christmas. In the EPL, Crystal Palace will play in the conference league.
On December 16, the quarterfinals of the EFL Cup, the League Cup, will be held. Manchester City-Brentford, Arsenal-Palace, Cardiff City-Chelsea and Newcastle-Fulham clash. There is a possibility that the match against Arsenal will be postponed to around the 23rd due to the overlapping schedule of the two games for Palace. The final match of round 17 between Fulham and Nottingham will be held on the 22nd.
|
The England Football Supporters' Association announced on social media after the announcement of the EPL Secretariat that "EPL's Christmas and New Year TV broadcast schedule was announced two weeks later than scheduled. Newcastle's away trip to Old Trafford was the furthest away game played in that period, and it is said to take place at 8pm on Boxing Day, which is ridiculously late. an imprudent decision" complained.
Gavin Buckland, a writer and football statistician who worked for the British public broadcaster BBC'BBC' and Everton's club, expressed concern by describing this year's Boxing Day as the "beginning of the end of the great tradition of British football". "It was played on Boxing Day for 140 years, except for the period when the game was not played on Sunday. When a new schedule of matches is announced, one of the first things EPL fans do is to see which team they will face on Boxing Day "Humans are animals of habit, and for many families it is a tradition. This news reminds us once again that the traditional and precious aspects of our football are being undermined in pursuit of commercial purposes."
This article was translated by Naver AI translator.
