Arsenal and Chelsea agree to pre-season clash in Beijing
Arsenal are set to play London rivals Chelsea in a pre-season friendly in China, it has been announced.
As part of their pre-season tours, the two clubs will go head-to-head at the Bird's Nest Stadium in the Chinese capital next summer.
The first meeting of the London rivals outside of the UK will take place on Saturday 22 July.
It will be Arsenal's second trip to Beijing and their third visit to China in recent years.
As for Chelsea, it is four years since the Blues' last pre-season tour of Asia, although they did visit on a post-season trip to play Thailand All-Stars in Bangkok during the summer of 2015.
Arsenal's chief executive Ivan Gazidis said: "Arsenal versus Chelsea matches are always very special and I am delighted that we are going to be able to give our fans in China the chance to see this game live.
"We have a fantastic following in China. Our matches have been the most watched Premier League games on television and our online following is among the biggest in world football. I have no doubt it will be a great game and we are all looking forward to bringing one of the big London derbies to the Bird’s Nest."
This isn't the first high-profile derby scheduled to take place in Beijing in recent years.
Manchester United and rivals City were due to meet at the Bird's Nest last July but torrential rain forced its cancellation at the eleventh hour.
Up to 50,000 tickets had been sold for the encounter, which was seen as a glittering global advertisement for the Premier League, but the meeting ended up descending into farce.
