When does the 2023/24 Premier League season begin?
Start leafing through the calendars and uncapping the red felt tip as the key dates for the 2023/24 Premier League fixture are here.
The unrelenting cycle of top-flight football doesn't look like slowing down any time soon. 135 years after Aston Villa board member William McGregor first conjured the idea of an organised league system over a few cups of joe in his friend Joe Tillotson's coffee shop, England's top flight is still going strong.
Here's everything you need to know about the upcoming campaign, which still broadly bears the same format as Old Mac's grand conception a century and a half ago.
When is the 2023/24 Premier League start date?
The 32nd season of the Premier League kicks off on the weekend of Saturday 12 August 2023.
The 2022/23 campaign concludes on Sunday 28 May 2023, allowing for just 76 days off. Aside from the COVID-affected summer of 2020 - when just 48 days separated two campaigns - no other off-season has ever been shorter in the history of the competition.
There may not be a major men's tournament to fill the void but the women's World Cup in Australia and New Zealand is fast approaching. In fact, the tournament - predicted to be the most attended in the history of the women's World Cup - will still be ongoing by the time the Premier League gets underway, with the last two quarter-finals pencilled in for 12 August ahead of a final on the following Sunday.
When is the 2023/24 Premier League end date?
The final set of Premier League fixtures are traditionally played at the exact same time up and down the country to avoid any chance of teams agreeing upon results which suit both parties. The last day of the 2023/24 campaign will be Sunday 19 May 2024.
Euro 2024, hosted in Germany, is scheduled to kick off 26 days after the Premier League's conclusion, on Friday 14 June 2024.
Will there be a winter break in the 2023/24 Premier League season?
The Premier League have confirmed that the 2023/24 season will see a resumption of the short-lived winter break. A staple of other European leagues, English football not only ploughs through the festive period but cranks up the frequency of fixtures.
In the coming campaign, there will be a midseason hiatus between 13 and 20 January. Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag was the latest to point out the detrimental impact of the Premier League's congested fixture schedule on player welfare. Although, it is not an opinion universally shared in football.
When are the international breaks in the 2023/24 Premier League season?
When a World Cup isn't jammed into the middle of league season, it's customary to have four international breaks peppered throughout the campaign. The first comes just as the league season begins to gain momentum before another two weekends are lost to qualifiers and the Nations League in autumn. Just as international football has almost entirely faded into the background, it is then thrust back into the spotlight in spring.
The 2023/24 campaign will following the same pattern with the four international breaks set to be held during the weeks of:
- 9 September 2023
- 14 October 2023
- 18 November 2023
- 23 March 2024
When are the 2023/24 Premier League season fixtures announced?
The broad strokes of the upcoming campaign may be available but the nitty gritty of the complete fixture list - at least its first draft - will not be revealed until Wednesday 14 June 2023, with all of the information set to drop at 09:00 BST (04:00 ET, 01:00 PT).