ARSENE WENGER has claimed rival clubs exert undue influence on match scheduling due to their relationship with television companies and has bemoaned the Premier League’s inability to impose tighter control.

The Arsenal manager, whose team play at Swansea live on Sky tomorrow, believes the onus is on the Premier League to ensure “more fairness in the schedules”.

He had expressed frustration over last season’s run-in that Manchester United had played a series of fixtures after his own team, with his outburst yesterday apparently due to ESPN moving the FA Cup tie against Aston Villa back 24 hours to January 29th .

That has had a knock-on effect, with the trip to Bolton Wanderers moved back a day to February 1st. The current top four will have played the previous night and, by the time they are next involved on the subsequent Saturday afternoon, Arsenal will have played twice, with their kick-off against Blackburn at 1pm. “Television is influenced by some clubs to choose the fixtures. And some clubs get advantaged by television, if it’s Sky or ESPN, because they have an influence there from the clubs directly,” said Wenger.

“The Premier League should be very much bigger than they are in front of that. I do not want to go personally on any one club but, if things are repeated, then it’s not a coincidence any more.”

Asked whether he had evidence of rivals influencing broadcasters’ schedules, Wenger replied: “What do you call proof? I am in sport. If I fight with you in a 100m run and you have to run the semi-final on Sunday morning and run against me on Sunday afternoon and I have a run on Friday morning, I don’t need to accuse anyone. I just say: ‘Is that fair or not?’ It’s not.”