Fixtures Out Monday - Interesting Explanation How Football League Prepares The Fixtures

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On The Football League Site, a very interesting description and explanation as to how the Fixtures are prepared.

HOW ARE THE FIXTURES PLANNED?

This Monday sees the release of the fixture list for the 2008/09 season, one of the most important days in The Football League calendar.

Always eagerly anticipated by fans, it is a day when everyone can begin making plans for the next nine months.

For those of you who have often wondered how the matches come to be agreed and exactly who it is that determines when and where you will be going between August and May, www.football-league.co.uk caught up with two key members of The League's Fixtures Working Party, the group responsible for overseeing the fixture scheduling.

The Football League's Fixtures Secretary David Cookson and Glenn Thompson from Atos Origin - the company that provide the fixture generating software on the computer that was considered the 30th most influential person in sport by one recent publication - answer the questions you have always wanted to ask.
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When does the fixture planning process begin?

DC: The fixture planning starts a year in advance, it dates through from when FIFA and UEFA detail the International and European match dates. That information is put into a fixture schedule which we then build up with the domestic competitions. That continues to evolve right up until the last minute - we were still making changes to that fixture schedule just last week - and that forms the basis of the work that Glenn starts in relation to sequencing.

GT: Our work begins in earnest at the start of the year; that is when we start to look at how we are going to sequence the games for the season. I will occasionally go back to The Football League and The Premier League and see if we can change a couple of midweek matches, that then gets fed back into the process. I will spend roughly ten days sequencing the games into a mathematical formula, which is then approved by The Football League and The Premier League.

What are The League's key objectives in planning the fixtures?

GT: There are a set of rules that are drawn up by both leagues that we aim to satisfy. For example, no-one will play more than two home or away games in a row; for every five games, three are at home, two are away or vice versa. We try to balance the number of midweek matches so if a team has ten games, five are at home and five away, if we can't do that we'll try and make it six-four or vice-versa. We try to adhere to the rules to ensure the fixtures come out as fair to all clubs as possible.

What involvement do clubs and fans have in this process?

DC: The clubs are given the opportunity by means of a fixture questionnaire to have an input into how the fixtures are produced. That involves questions about any specific date requests that they might want to avoid and any clubs that they need to be paired with to avoid being at home on the same day.

That information is fed into us and our job is to sift through and prioritise those requests, for example police requests are given quite a high priority. Our key objective is to ensure that we can get all the matches played, the integrity of the list is paramount throughout and we want to approach every aspect of the compilation process in a fair and equitable manner.

We have a member of The Football Supporters' Federation on our fixtures working party and they oversee the process under which we undertake to compile the fixture lists. We ask supporters with any individual requests to feed that information directly to their clubs and if the club supports those views they can inform us via the questionnaire.

How does the system of 'pairings' work?

GT: There are a number of pairings that are fairly obvious, the likes of Sheffield Wednesday can't be at home on the same time as Sheffield United. You then start looking at those relationships from a wider angle, for example this season, when West Ham are at home it requires Dagenham & Redbridge, and where possible Leyton Orient to be away. Southend United like to be opposite West Ham because it affects their support but Southend United have to pair with Colchester United for Essex Police reasons and Colchester United have to pair with Ipswich Town due to shared stewards. Also, for police reasons Ipswich have to pair with Norwich City. In addition to this, Tottenham Hotspur also like to be opposite West Ham United in the Premier League so that brings Arsenal into the mix, which affects Barnet and for the first time this year, Gillingham have asked to be opposite Southend. That is just one example and taking it to the extremes, shows that the fixtures for eleven clubs are linked together to varying degrees.

Obviously there are some pairings that have different levels of importance and the main ones have to take precedence. We can't satisfy everyone, all of the time. The whole fixture process is a compromise across all 92 clubs and we can't show any favouritism to any particular club. You have to be fair, the integrity of the process is very important.

What does it feel like to own responsibility for the fixtures computer?

GT: It is a very interesting job to do, I might come up with the fixtures but it is The Premier League and The Football League that have the final say, they can knock back anything I give them. It is nerve racking attending meetings with a set of fixtures, you turn up hopefully having followed most of the rules, aware of a few clashes and hope they won't send me straight back to work on them again. A lot of effort goes into them and you have tight deadlines to work to, if I have a problem I can't expect the leagues to delay publication by a week. If you had six months to do this, you may be able to come up with something a bit better but you have a finite amount of time. Therefore you come up with the best solution you can, in the time you have got to do this.

What is the process and how does the software work?

GT: Once I have got the schedule from The Football League, I break that down into a number of different sections, this creates the fixture sequence. First of all, we look at the club requests, for example if a club wants to be away on the first game of the season and the sixth match then we can ensure that can be done. That is why teams don't go home/away/home/away all the way through the season. I then look at the pairings and I produce a grid of all 92 teams and that determines throughout the season whether a club will be playing at home or away on each match date. That information is fed into the fixtures computer, which then determines two groups; of home and away teams. The computer then randomly selects fixtures based on the home and away teams for each date ensuring that all the rules have been met. One thing I feed into the computer in advance are the Boxing Day games, these are hand picked to ensure that travel is minimised because there is no public transport anywhere in England.

Once we have a solution I believe is satisfactory I meet with The Football League and The Premier League for two or three days and review the fixtures. Things we review include looking at the travel for away fans across all areas. We would try and avoid for example, two south Yorkshire clubs travelling into one area, on the same day if we can help it because they may both be using the same public transport. We look at it from the angle of every Police Force, considering who is travelling into that area. We also look at certain days, the first and last games of the season, to make sure that we haven't got any games that might not get played. We are aiming to ensure that the fixtures on all 46 dates can be played; we don't want to get into problems of having matches postponed where we can help it.

How long does it take to generate the fixture list from beginning to end?

GT: I start the main compilation process on the Tuesday following the play-off finals, roughly three weeks before publication and we have to cram about five weeks worth of work into that period.

Once the provisional fixtures are announced, what right of reply do clubs have to amend them?

DC: There are occasions where we haven't been able to meet club requests, or we have what we call clash days where usually perfectly paired clubs i.e. Stoke and Port Vale may be at home on the same day. This is caused by the imbalance of match dates across all four divisions. Under normal circumstances that wouldn't happen but where that occurs, it is unlikely that the police forces will accept these matches and therefore one of the games will have to change. We do get the odd club who experiment with the occasional Friday night match; kick-off times also change, for example, derby matches on a Saturday are often made early kick-offs or even moved to a Sunday. Most teams play midweek matches on a Tuesday but if they have a game on the weekend before which is chosen for television coverage on the Sunday, then they might want to put the following midweek match back until the Wednesday.

We give clubs ten days to come back to us with any changes; it then takes us a couple of days to process those before the final list is published. That isn't the end of it because football is a fluid business and things are changing all the time, more games are chosen for TV, police intelligence about specific matches comes to light and requests do come in to amend things during the season but that is what we are here to manage.

Is it getting more difficult to produce the fixture list each year?

DC: The number of dates that are available to domestic football have reduced. UEFA next season are taking an extra couple of dates by extending the number of days that Champions League matches can be played, so in twelve months time we will have even less options available to put competitions matches on. The Carling Cup is a prime example, from round three onwards we try to ensure that it doesn't clash with European football - these days that is nearly impossible. We have to go to UEFA to get dispensation to get the cup matches played. It is becoming harder as a result of fewer dates and that makes it more difficult to get the final solution out.

Is it impossible to keep everyone happy?

DC: The fixture list is a compromise solution, it is the best you can make whilst being as fair as possible to all concerned. Someone will be upset about something, I can guarantee it, whether it is midweek travel or that they are at home when they requested to be away. At the end of the day, you have got to see what is best for the League as a whole and you have to go with that.

GT: Most years we meet 80% of all date requests that the clubs put in. Where pairings are important we are hitting 95%+. We do get reports from the system that shows how we are doing in respect of the clubs wishes for date requests and pairings.

DC: Understandably supporters don't like midweek travel but on the flip side of that, if you gave a club all its derby matches midweek, they would be upset because that would affect the attendances and naturally that impacts on a club's finances. Again, it is trying to find a balance between the two. We are a national league, from Carlisle down to Yeovil so there is a fair spread in there.

Why are there no New Year's Day games this year?

DC: The FA Cup is traditionally staged on the first Saturday in January and this season the first day of 2009 falls on a Thursday which is a day when we wouldn't normally have a league programme on. It is a shame, but we can't schedule matches on New Years Eve because the Police Forces up and down the Country would not accept them because it is undoubtedly the busiest night of the year for them.

There was an alternative, which was considered but wouldn't have gained us anything and that was playing on 1st January and then on Sunday 4th January and putting the FA Cup back a week but that created its own problem with scheduling so it was decided to leave things as they are for this season.

Don't forget - the fixtures are released on Monday morning at 10:00am ...

Doncaster Rovers