Back in August 2022, shortly before the 31st season of the Premier League began, the competition’s CEO Richard Masters raised the curtain with the line: “Let the soap opera begin.”
However, unlike the nation’s favourite afternoon dramas, almost half of the episodes in the latest season of the Premier League are available to watch on UK shores. As recently as March, Masters himself confirmed that the long-standing blackout rule on Saturday afternoons is not “changing in the near term”.
Nevertheless, on Saturday 6 May, Manchester City’s home meeting with relegation-scrapping Leeds United kicks off at 3pm, right in the middle of the blackout slot, but will be beamed onto TV screens up and down the country.
Here’s why the Premier League have made an exception to their scheduling this weekend.
The Saturday blackout is alternatively known as Article 48, which refers to the ‘Audiovisual and radio transmissions’ section of the UEFA Statutes.
According to the iteration released in July 2022, Article 48 states: “UEFA and the member associations shall have the exclusive rights to broadcast and use, as well as to authorise their broadcast or use by picture, sound or other data carriers of any kind (including data carriers that have yet to be developed), matches which come within their jurisdiction, either live or recorded, in whole or as excerpts.”
England’s ‘blocked hours’ are between 2.45pm and 5.15pm on Saturdays during the club season. The blackout is not enforced during the international breaks dotted throughout the campaign.
However, international football has been shelved since the end of March while the Premier League hurtles towards its conclusion. So why do fans get to watch Manchester City vs Leeds?
Originally, Manchester City’s second meeting of the season with Leeds United was pencilled in for Sunday 7 May. However, Pep Guardiola’s side serenely side-stepped Bayern Munich in the Champions League quarter-finals, booking their place in the final four against the competition’s record winners Real Madrid.
City travel to the Spanish capital for their first leg on Tuesday. The Champions League schedule is not as malleable as the English top flight’s and the one day of rest City would have been afforded between Leeds’ visit and flying to Madrid was, rightly, not deemed long enough.
However, by bringing the match forward to Saturday 6 May, the Premier League painted themselves into a corner. No games could take place at the early kick-off time of 12.30pm due to the
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