Pep Guardiola reveals fate of Man City's request to delay start of 2025/26 Premier League season

Pep Guardiola has revealed that Manchester City's request to postpone their first two games of the 2024/25 season due to FIFA Club World Cup commitments has been rejected.

Man City are one of 12 European teams set to compete in the reformatted FIFA Club World Cup in the USA in 2025. The competition will now be played every four years instead of annually, with 32 teams in total set to battle it out for the trophy.

Crucially, and rather worryingly, for European teams, the tournament is due to be played after the end of the 2024/25 domestic season and is scheduled to run between 15 June and 13 July 2025. The new FIFA Club World Cup format will also see teams play a lot more football too, with the winning team set to play seven games thanks to the new group stage that has been added to accommodate the extra qualifying teams.

The extension of the Club World Cup comes during the same time at which the UEFA has also added two games to their new Champions League, Europa League and Conference League formats. The addition of more games to the football calendar has led to concerns being raised about player welfare. Man City's star man Rodri was particularly vocal about this, insisting that players should go on strike to protest.

Shortly after Rodri made said comments, he was struck down for the rest of the season with an ACL injury.

Speaking to the press ahead of City's clash with Fulham this weekend, manager Guardiola revealed that City had in face requested to postpone their first two games of the 2025/26 season due to fears around player burnout - a request that was swiftly rejected by the Premier League:

"The Premier League has not allowed us to postpone the first two games for our recovery," Guardiola said.

"I think the club asked the league to postpone one or two or three weeks so we can have a holiday after the [FIFA Club] World Cup.

"But it is absolutely not allowed. The Premier League say yes to us? No. Absolutely not."

As things stand, City could start their 2025/26 campaign just one month after the end of 2024/25 if they make it all the way to the Club World Cup final.

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