When are Stoke City’s 2024/2025 Championship fixtures released

Preparations are well underway for 2024/25 at Stoke City and, for many reasons, it is hoped and it will be a very different season.

It will be the first summer transfer window, pre-season and full season, for instance, under head coach Steven Schumacher, sporting director Jon Walters and head of recruitment Lee Darnbrough. It will be a first full season in English football for key men Wouter Burger, Bae Junho and Million Manhoef, who are all trying to build on their experience from the last few months.

It will be the first season with a new 1,550-capacity fan zone behind the Boothen End and the away end is shifting at the bet365 Stadium so that home supporters will flank both sides of the tunnel for the first time since the ground was built in 1997. Licensed standing is being introduced in the upper section across the south stand, known as the Caldwell Construction Stand.

The fixture diary will change too. There will be at least 24 Stoke league matches shown live on television thanks to a new deal with Sky Sports. Only games on the opening weekend will be allowed to broadcast on Saturday afternoons so that means at least 23 Stoke matches not on a Saturday afternoon. There will be games on Friday evenings and Saturday and Sunday lunchtimes as well as selections on Thursday and Monday evenings.

And, fingers crossed, it will most importantly be different on the pitch and Stoke can end a cycle of bottom half finishes in the Championship and start to pull themselves up the table.

The campaign will run from the weekend of August 10 until May 3. There will be 46 rounds of league matches, held over 33 weekends, nine mid-weeks and four Bank Holidays in the Championship. Leagues One and Two will play on 36 weekends and six mid-weeks. The League Cup and Football League Trophy will continue with the same formats from last season. The Carabao Cup will launch in mid-August. The play-off finals, meanwhile, will take place over the 2025 May Bank Holiday weekend.

The new fixture list will be announced on Wednesday, June 26 at 9am. It will be published live on StokeonTrentLive.

Television selections for all matches to be played before the end of September will be confirmed by July 1, within seven days of the fixtures being announced.

Selection of all other matches scheduled to be played before the FA Cup third round, in January 2024, will be confirmed before the start of the season.

Selection of all matches to be played between the FA Cup third round and the first weekend of March will be confirmed by November 1.

Selection of all matches scheduled after the first weekend of March will be made on a four-week rolling basis starting from February 1. Sky use the example that a match picked for TV coverage in the first weekend of April will be announced by the first weekend of March. It adds: “This is almost six month’s notice provided to fans and clubs, a significant increase on the current deal, which sees five weeks’ notice given across the majority of the season. By selecting TV picks early and giving much more notice, fans will be able to plan with certainty when making travel and hotel arrangements.”

The summer transfer window officially opened on Friday, June 14 and will close on Friday, August 30 at 11pm. The winter transfer window will run from January 1 through to 11pm on Monday, February 3 in 2025.

Key dates for Championship 2024/25 season

• Fixture release day – Wednesday 26th June 2024, 9am
• Start date – Weekend of August 10th-11th 2024
• Carabao Cup first round – August 13th-14th 2024
• Carabao Cup final – Sunday 16th March 2025
• Season end – Saturday 3rd May 2025
• Play-off final weekend – May 24th-26th 2025

Who is in the Championship next season – and very early title odds

Leeds 6/1; Burnley 13/2; Luton 10/1; Middlesbrough, Norwich, West Brom 12/1; Sheffield Utd, Coventry 14/1; Sunderland,, Portsmouth, Watford, Derby, Stoke, Hull 20/1; QPR, Sheffield Wednesday 25/1; Swansea, Bristol City, Millwall, Blackburn 28/1; Cardiff, Preston 40/1; Plymouth, Oxford 66/1.