West Ham United fans are being ignored as Arsenal clash moved for TV
West Ham United have had their Premier League game against Arsenal on Boxing Day moved to an 8pm kick-off to be shown on Amazon Prime.
Football London reported that the two sides had drawn the short straw for the festive fixtures by being close in proximity to each other which may have contributed to the game being moved to a very late kick-off.
But that won’t be the most annoying thing for fans of both clubs as the Premier League has waited too long to properly arrange this change in kick-off time.
As all Boxing Day fixtures are due to be on Amazon Prime, there was really no need to move any of them because the streaming service has an unlimited amount of slots to show live games.
If Sky Sports and BT Sport were on the case then some would have to be changed as they have channels that need to run to time and there are only a finite amount on each platform where games can be shown.
Both fanbases won’t be at all pleased that they might have to waste a good chunk of their festive celebrations to go and watch their side in action when they could have had the game done by 5pm and gone to join the family fun at home.
Television now rules the game of football all over the world, sadly, which means that if Sky, BT or Amazon want to move a game, it gets moved and the clubs don’t get a great deal of say in any of these decisions.
Perhaps it is time for the Premier League clubs to come together and set their stall out in terms of games being moved at late notice just for the purposes of TV.
The 3pm blackout doesn’t help matters a great deal but perhaps those are the games Amazon should be taking to leave Sky and BT the rest of the weekend’s fixtures for normal TV.
West Ham and Arsenal should be incensed that they have effectively been forced to an 8pm kick-off when there was no need for it whatsoever.