When King George VI died in 1952, the old First Division continued to play uninterrupted football, marking the King’s death with salutes and song, but otherwise kept quiet and carried on. Or in the case of Chelsea, keep calm and lose hard, 4-1 SunderlandThree days after the king’s death.
Seventy years later, it is clear that we cannot handle that kind of calculated response in this modern world, and instead decided to Postponement of a full round of matches In the Premier League and Football League. More postponements or rescheduling could follow next weekend as well, with Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral likely scheduled for Sunday.
I left the League authorities scrambling yesterday, obviously without any clear protocol or plans in place for this inevitable event, but in the end I came up with this response jointly with the UK government.
As a sign of respect for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, the weekend’s round of the Premier League will be postponed.
Premier League (premierleague) September 9, 2022
And this response is not to play.
It is unclear how this will affect the middle of the week Champions League A match against Salzburg, which was supposed to take place at Stamford Bridge on Wednesday.
On the plus side, this gives Graham Potter a few extra days to settle in and conduct a pre-season pseudo, even.