**Boxing Day football is almost as big a tradition as Christmas Day itself, with scores of football fans up and down the country dragging their hungover selves to watch the festive fixtures, while even more lie on the couch with a tin of Quality Street and a thumping head to watch the games on TV.**
However, this year things are going to be very different with the Premier League only set to schedule one match on Boxing Day rather than the full complement of fixtures.
As yet, we don't know what that fixture will be, so Newcastle United fans will have to wait a little bit longer to find out if they have a game to attend on Boxing Day.
As things stand, Newcastle are scheduled to face Manchester United at Old Trafford on the 27th of December, and that is certainly a fixture that TV Schedulers will have a keen interest in, so there's a high chance that Newcastle fans will have a trip to Manchester to make on Boxing Day.
Newcastle's game against Manchester United could be chosen for Boxing Day TV broadcast
TV Broadcasters are forcing the Premier League to break with tradition
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This is thought to be a one-off change for this year only, according to TalkSPORT, who explain the reasoning behind the change this year with Boxing Day falling on a Friday.
> "There will only be one single Premier League match on Boxing Day in 2025."The expansion of UEFA competitions and moving FA Cup matches to just the weekends appear to have affected the scheduling.
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> "To meet their contract obligation, the Premier League must provide 33 weekends of football to broadcasters
Who cares about the fans anyway?
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Boxing Day will fall on a Saturday in 2026, so things will return to normal then, but this just shows how much power the TV broadcasters now have when it comes to changing fixtures and messing with traditions.
TalkSPORT also mentions that the TV picks for December should have already been made on October 15th, but while most of November and December's changes were announced on that date, the Boxing Day game has yet to be decided.
Once again, it's the fans who are going to be messed about at the behest of the TV Overlords.