Premier League Confirms This Weekend’s Fixtures Are Postponed As ‘A Mark Of Respect To Queen Elizabeth II’
Sep 9, 2022 at 6:15 PM
The Premier League has confirmed that following the unfortunate demise of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, this weekend’s fixtures are postponed. The Royal Family on September 8 announced that Queen Elizabeth II has passed away at the age of 96. Immediately after the news broke out, speculations fueled up regarding suspension of professional football games across the country.
Queen Elizabeth shares a close bond with the game, and as a result the footballing fratern and ity across England agreed to postpone the fixtures. Some important games were slated to take place with Manchester City hosting Tottenham Hotspur, Arsenal welcoming Everton at home and Graham Potter overseeing his first game in charge of Chelsea boss with a trip to Fulham.
Premier League mourns the death of Queen Elizabeth II
The official statement released by the English top flight also mentioned that their decision to call-off the fixtures is ‘aligned’ with The FA and EFL. The Championship, League One and League Two games also stand postponed as confirmed by EFL. Further on Women’ Super League, Women’s Championship and Women’s FA Cup games are also suspended as a mark of respect.
The Premier League’s statement read:
“At a meeting this morning, Premier League clubs paid tribute to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. To honour her extraordinary life and contribution to the nation, and as a mark of respect, this weekend’s Premier League match round will be postponed, including Monday evening’s game. This is aligned with the approach that The FA and EFL will take with their competitions this weekend.
“Further updates regarding Premier League fixtures during the period of mourning will be provided in due course.”
Premier League Chief Executive Richard Masters too shared his condolences through the statement as he expressed:
“We and our clubs would like to pay tribute to Her Majesty’s long and unwavering service to our country. As our longest-serving monarch, she has been an inspiration and leaves behind an incredible legacy following a life of dedication. This is a tremendously sad time for not just the nation, but also for the millions of people around the world who admired her, and we join together with all those in mourning her passing.”
As a mark of respect to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, this weekend’s Premier League match round will be postponed.
— Premier League (@premierleague) September 9, 2022
With all the league games off, eyes are now towards UEFA to see whether they too cancel their next week’s fixtures. The European fixtures of Arsenal, Manchester United and West Ham this week however, did go ahead as planned since it was too late to suspend those. While Arsenal’s Europa League game against FC Zurich was already kicked-off, the Gunners then stopped live-tweeting the updates from the fixture as soon as they came to know about the Queen. Meanwhile United and West Ham too concluded their games after releasing official statements.
Games across Scotland are postponed as well with the weekend’s Dundee vs Cove Rangers fixture called off. The Irish Football Association also released a statement saying all games between September 9 to September 11 are postponed. Along with football, many of the country’s important events are cancelled as well after the Queen’s demise.