Big change made to Community Shield plans for 2026

Wembley Stadium will not host the 2026 edition of the Community Shield, the FA have announced.

The traditional curtain-raiser pits the reigning league champions against the FA Cup winners (for the most part, anyway) and now typically takes place on the weekend before the Premier League gets under way.

Both dates fall slightly later than usual this year thanks to the World Cup, which only finishes on Sunday July 19 - and that may have caused some complications for getting the game played at the national stadium as usual.

2026 Community Shield set to be played in Cardiff

The Weeknd are already scheduled to played a pop concert (yeah we're cool) at Wembley on the weekend of the Community Shield, rendering the stadium unavailable for use.

As such, the game is going to be held at the Principality Stadium (formerly the Millennium Stadium) in Cardiff instead.

The Principality filled in as the host for the FA Cup, League Cup and Community Shield finals while the new Wembley stadium was being constructed between 2001 and 2006.

Wembley has generally been the venue for the Community Shield since then, but it has been pre-empted on two other occasions.

Manchester City and Chelsea met at Villa Park instead in 2012, when Wembley was busy hosting the men's Olympic football final.

Liverpool's victory over City in 2022 was meanwhile played at Leicester's King Power Stadium, with Wembley hosting the Lionesses' Euro 2022 final victory over Germany instead.

Inaugurated in 1908, the first four Charity Shield finals were held at Stamford Bridge and bounced around a variety of venues and formats (such a 'first division select XI vs second division select XI' or 'England professionals vs England amateurs', either of which we'd honest love to see revived) for the next couple of decades.

The general 'league winners vs FA Cup winners' format was settled on in 1930, with the game generally played at the home of the league champions.

Wembley only became the regular home of the Charity Shield - rebranded as the Community Shield from 2002 - in 1974, when it hosted the notoriously bad-tempered clash between Liverpool and Leeds.

Yes, that's the one where Billy Bremner and Kevin Keegan had a fight, presumably over which of them was the best alliterative footballer. Judges later awarded Keegan the moral victory when it emerged that Billy was short for 'William'.