Since when has the Premier League played on December 30, New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day?

The Premier League fixture schedule is generally pretty relentless during the festive period and 2023 has been no different. Between Thursday 21 December and Tuesday 2 January, there are only two days with no scheduled English top-flight fixtures - Christmas Day and today, Friday 29 December.

Boxing Day fixtures part of English soccer tradition

Unlike in many other countries, whose leagues stop over Christmas, soccer at this time of year has long been a tradition in England, as well as Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Once upon a time (pre-1965), some matches were even played on 25 December, while Boxing Day games have been a mainstay since 1957 and are now some of the most eagerly-anticipated of the Premier League season.

Fans unhappy at Christmas Eve game

This year, for the first time in 28 years, we saw a match scheduled for Christmas Eve, which didn’t go down well with fans of Wolverhampton Wanderers and, especially, Chelsea. Supporters of The Blues made their unhappiness unknown to the Premier League, with the Chelsea Supporters’ Trust launching a #GetStuffed protest campaign in which they claim to have been treated as customers rather than supporters.

London to Wolverhampton is an approximate 250-mile round trip, but few public transport services ran on Christmas Eve due to regular suspensions over the festive period and strikes. The protest did, at least work, with Premier League bosses announcing no matches would be played on 24 December in 2024-25.

Premier League soccer brings in the New Year

In general, anything goes at New Year, particularly if 30 and 31 December fall on a weekend. In the second ever Premier League season in 1993-94, when there were 22 clubs in the division, there was a full round of 11 fixtures on New Year’s Day, which was a Saturday. The following season, the same thing happened on New Year’s Eve.

2023-24 will actually have one of the lighter New Year’s Eve/New Year’s Day schedules, with only two games to be played on 31 December (Fulham - Arsenal and Spurs - Bournemouth) and just one on 1 January (Liverpool - Newcastle United). As 30 December is a Saturday this year, six games are scheduled for then, with the remaining matchday 20 fixture (West Ham - Brighton) being played on Tuesday 2 December.

2023-24 Premier League New Year schedule