Huizlily, it has to do with tense. 'Are being played' refers to the future. 'Are played' is present tense and does not make sense being used for something that is on the future. Hope this helps. I will take it that you have already thanked me. Please only add a comment if you wish to ask a further question.

This is a standard use of the present continuous for a future arrangement. No matches are being played next weekend = no matches are scheduled for next weekend. Surely you have learnt that we don't ONLY use the present continuous for things happening at the moment? Didn't you know that we also use it all the time to talk about future plans and arrangements? For example "What are you doing next weekend?" "I'm seeing some old friends". You could use a 'will' future, especially if you are sending out a message informing people about this: i.e. "No matches will be played next weekend". Could you use a present simple, "No matches are played"? Not really. We only used the present simple for future arrangements when they are very fixed or part of long-term timetables.