Why Everton vs Man United is starting at 7PM

Manchester United travel to Merseyside today to face Everton in the Premier League.

United will look to bounce back from last weekend’s thrashing by local rivals Manchester City as they face an in-form Everton side at Goodison Park.

The Red Devils were beaten 6-3 in the Manchester derby, with hat-tricks from both Erling Haaland and Phil Foden seeing off Eric Ten Hag’s side. 

Everton, on the other hand, come into this fixture having won their last two Premier League games 1-0 and 2-1, against West Ham and Southampton respectively.

This encounter was initially scheduled to be played on Saturday at 12:30pm, although it will now take place on Sunday at 7pm- an unprecedented kick-off time on a Sunday.

This is in part due to broadcasting rights and in part due to United’s involvement in the Europa League on Thursday night. 

Ten Hag’s men traveled to Cyprus on Thursday to entertain Omonia Nicosia, and thus need at least a three day rest period to recover prior to their trip to Merseyside. 

Premier League rules state that clubs playing in European competitions on either Wednesday or Thursday are not eligible to play in the 12:30 pm slot.

This meant the initial Saturday lunchtime kick-off was unfeasible and had to be moved back to Sunday.

Usually the game would be rescheduled for a traditional Sunday Premier League kick-off time- 2pm or 4:30pm.

BT Sport have the broadcasting rights to Saturday lunchtime games, meaning as this game was supposed to take place in that slot, BT already have the rights to it.

However, existing broadcasting rules ensure that BT and Sky Sports don’t show games at the same time, meaning that because Sky already have two games scheduled for the traditional Sunday kick-off times, the Everton vs United encounter could not be scheduled to start at these times.

Sky will show Crystal Palace vs Leeds at 2pm, and then Liverpool’s trip to league leaders Arsenal at 4:30pm.

This means to avoid a clash between fixtures on the two different channels, United’s trip to Everton has been scheduled to kick-off approximately 15 minutes after the Arsenal vs Liverpool game finishes.