Guardiola wants delayed start for Man City next season

Pep Guardiola wants Manchester City's first matches of next season to be postponed - but fears the Premier League are not interested in helping ease the burden on their players.

Guardiola said City had asked for the delay because of the club's involvement with the Club World Cup, but said the Premier League would not accept the request.

The final of the 32-team event is set for 13 July at the MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, creating a gap of either four or five weeks to the start of the 2025-26 Premier League season.

Three of those weeks will be mandatory rest periods for the players.

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

"I think the club asked the league to postpone one or two or three weeks so we can have a holiday after the [Club] World Cup but it is absolutely not allowed. The Premier League say yes to us? No. Absolutely not."

However, after talking to officials at City and the Premier League, the BBC has learned there has been no formal request.

The Premier League has yet to confirm its start date for the 2025-26 campaign. However, if past seasons are any guide, the competition will begin on 9 or 16 August, with the Community Shield - which City have been involved in for six of the past seven seasons - played the week before.

City and Chelsea are involved in the Club World Cup next summer.

The BBC has learned there have been informal discussions, with Premier League officials saying the issue has been created by an expanded international calendar which they have no say over.

Guardiola is among a number of senior City staff who have concluded the outcome of those informal talks is that the current English champions will just have to get on with it.

In the Covid-affected 2020-21 campaign, City and Manchester United were allowed to start a week later than the rest of the Premier League as they both took part in the specially-created 'Super Eight' competitions at the end of the Champions League and Europa Leagues in the previous season.

That meant they did not finish the 2019-20 season until 15 and 16 August respectively, four weeks before the first games of the new season took place.

Wolves, who had played their last European game on 11 August, did play in the opening round of fixtures but their match at Sheffield United was moved to Monday, 14 September.

World governing body Fifa has told all clubs at the Club World Cup they must use their strongest available squads.

"They won't postpone these games so there will be a moment of 'what do we do?'" added Guardiola.

"I don't have an answer right now but we are going to take a decision with common sense."