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Why armchair fans could not watch both Arsenal and Man City live in Champions League
With both games at 8pm, viewers forced to choose between watching City draw 3-3 at Real and Arsenal being held 2-2 by Bayern
![Bukayo Saka and Harry Kane chat at the final whistle](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/football/2024/04/10/TELEMMGLPICT000373330329_17127480316280_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqrcGu7wMGpP5enjnIwuOto00LoKc4qSRYG1k6EyxQm_I.jpeg?imwidth=680)
They were two Champions League thrillers that each deserved to have armchair football fans glued to their screens from start to finish.
So why were viewers either forced to choose between watching Manchester City draw 3-3 at Real Madrid and Arsenal being held 2-2 by Bayern Munich or left struggling to follow both matches at the same time?
With such supporters facing the same dilemma for next Wednesday’s second legs, both of which also kick off at 8pm, Telegraph Sport columnist and Champions League pundit Jamie Carragher summed up the feelings of many when he posted on X: “Can we stagger the kick-offs in the #ChampionsLeague knockouts please @UEFA.”
There is no chance of Uefa bowing to that request at such short notice, despite sources at UK rights holder TNT Sports confirming it would also have preferred the City and Arsenal games not to have been played simultaneously.
Staggering kick-off times has become commonplace in the group stage of the Champions League under the current television deal, allowing fans to watch back-to-back games almost every match night.
But these are suddenly abandoned for the knockout phase, when all fixtures begin at 8pm.
This is primarily because this is viewed as peak time in Uefa’s biggest broadcast markets, not only in the UK but also in the likes of Spain and Germany.
So, while TNT might have wanted one of the Real-City or Arsenal-Bayern games to kick off at 6pm, their Spanish and German counterparts may not have felt the same way.
Another solution would have been to schedule one of the matches on the Tuesday and the other on the Wednesday.
But with three Spanish and two German clubs also remaining in the competition, it would have been impossible to keep every market happy.
Spanish police would also not have allowed Atletico Madrid to play Borussia Dortmund at home on the same night Real hosted City, adding another complicating factor.
Confirming the reasons behind the scheduling of the quarter-final ties, Uefa said in a statement: “It is due to the specific constellation of the draw and the participants, which meant the calendar had to try to accommodate many considerations, including a city clash and multiple pairings of teams from the same domestic markets.”
However, all is not lost for those pining for back-to-back European games.
The knockout stage of the Europa Conference League does include staggered kick-offs, with the quarter-finals split between 5.45pm and 8pm starts.
That means that, for next Thursday’s second leg in the third-tier competition, armchair fans in the UK can watch Lille versus Aston Villa before tuning in for Atalanta versus Liverpool or West Ham United versus Bayer Leverkusen in the Europa League.