Key dates and events to watch out for this summer at Leeds United
Leeds United’s schedule for the 2017 Championship season will be announced on June 26, when the EFL confirms the date for Fixture Release Day.
After losing the play-off final against Southampton on Sunday afternoon at Wembley Stadium, the Whites will remain in the second tier. While the disappointment of the loss will linger, it allows supporters to begin planning for another season and identifying crucial dates to map what everyone hopes will be the season in which the Yorkshire club returns to the Premier League for the second time.
Fixture Release Day, a first for the Championship, will also reveal when Leeds will appear on television in August and September as part of the new EFL broadcast contract with Sky Sports. Championship clubs, worth £935 million collectively to the EFL, are reported to be nearly 50% better off as a result of the new arrangement, which guarantees Daniel Farke’s side at least 24 live TV appearances in the next season.
After learning their TV games for the first two months of the season on the day fixtures are released, the Whites will learn their TV picks and potential schedule alterations until the FA Cup third round in early January, when the season begins. It is part of Sky Sports’ commitment to providing more transparency to fans as part of the new broadcast arrangement.
Leeds are anticipated to resume to pre-season training later than other teams on the fixture release day, due to the late start to the season and their play-off campaign, which means Farke and his players have just recently completed their time off. That being said, here are some important dates for the 2024/25 academic year.
Transfer Window Dates
While Fixture Release Day is usually an important day in terms of getting ready for the new season, the start of the transfer window may be an even greater day, with Leeds and other Championship clubs aiming to use it to enhance their squads and boost their chances of success next season.
The summer transfer window officially opens on June 14 and closes on August 30 at 11 p.m. It allows clubs plenty of time to fine-tune their squads for the season, though commerce is expected to be quiet for the first few weeks. With players unlikely to return from vacation until the end of June/beginning of July, transfer activity tends to start slowly most summers.
Players like Jamie Shackleton and Liam Cooper, who will be available for free this summer once their contracts expire, will not be eligible to sign with new teams until July 1, with their current contracts expiring on June 30.
First game of the season.
The first game of the season will then be the focus, as the Championship campaign begins a week later than usual this year. As part of the new broadcast agreement, every EFL game will be shown live throughout the opening weekend, which begins on Friday, August 9.
In the Championship, there will be two 8 p.m. kickoffs on Friday evening, and two games are scheduled to be played on Sunday at a time to be announced. The remaining games will be played on Saturday and may still begin at 3 p.m., despite the fact that they will be broadcast live, and the 3 p.m. blackout will remain in effect. There are no Premier League games scheduled for that weekend, therefore the 3 p.m. blackout is not relevant.
The Whites will also be televised live between the first and second league games of the season, as the first midweek is the Carabao Cup’s first round. All games in that competition will be televised live as part of Sky Sports’ new Sky Sports+ service, which effectively replaces the red button from prior years. The Yorkshire club will be trying to improve on their performance last season, when they barely succumbed to Chelsea at Stamford Bridge in the fifth round of the competition.
Other Leeds dates to watch out for:
There will be friendlies throughout July, however, as Farke seeks to sharpen his players ahead of the new season. The Whites played four times in preparation for the 2023/24 Championship season, with matches against Manchester United, Monaco, and Nottingham Forest.
We may also expect the unveiling of the new Leeds uniforms, with Adidas likely to unveil their latest designs as they reach the final year of their contract with the Elland Road club, having signed a multi-year deal in July 2020. The deal was established ahead of the Whites’ return to the Premier League, and it marked the first time the two had collaborated.
Leeds have yet to announce their retained list, although it should be the club’s next significant communication within the next week or so. We already know that Joe Rodon, Connor Roberts, and Jaidon Anthony will return to their respective clubs at the end of their loan spells in LS11, while Luke Ayling is poised to leave the Whites after an eight-year stint in Yorkshire.
A lot of Leeds’ outstanding performances this season will also face decisions. After failing to secure promotion, the Whites are expected to be forced to sell around £100 million worth of players in order to comply with financial regulations heading into next season, with Crysencio Summerville, Illan Meslier, Wilfried Gnonto, and Georginio Rutter all being mentioned as potential options for the club to offload in the summer.
