NATIONAL CLINICAL DIRECTOR Professor Jason Leitch has confirmed that Celtic Park will host supporters in the coming weeks as the Scottish game look to welcome back fans following the season starting behind closed doors. Professor Leitch, who took in the rugby game between Edinburgh and Glasgow yesterday, confirmed that each stadium would host a trial event in coming weeks to determine viability and safety.
Speaking to BBC Sportsound, the man tasked with Scotland’s battle against Coronavirus said that the Scottish Government would continue to liaise with clubs in order to facilitate plans that would allow the safe return of supporters.
“I think it’s obvious if you’re going to test in football, it would seem sensible to do it in more than one place, wouldn’t it?
“Football is such a varied scale. You’ve got these two massive stadia in Glasgow.
“Then you go down one level and you get to Pittodrie, Hearts and Hibs.
“And then you go down another level again and now you’re in Stranraer or wherever.
“You’ve got to think about a couple of events, one of which at least should involve one of these big clubs at a big stadium.
“It seems sensible to me it could be Ibrox and Ross County or Celtic Park and Hamilton.
“The other thing, remember, is no stadium is going to get the go ahead until their plans are signed off.
“It’s not you sign off Ibrox and that gets you Fir Park.
“Fir Park would also have to send us exactly how they’re going to do the car parking, the hand sanitiser.
“Each stadia in turn will have to prove its safe, even if we’ve done a larger event for the whole country.”
700 supporters were hopeful that they would be allowed into Celtic Park for the first time in six months but Sturgeon pulled the plug on this idea meaning that the club and its supporters may need to wait until the September 14 date given by the Scottish Government.
UEFA confirmed this week that the Super Cup would be played in front of a 30% capacity – this could be something which supporters are used to in the coming weeks and months. This would still be 20k and could maybe lift the lacklustre Celtic.
Celtic’s case was probably not aided by the recent antics of Belgian defender Boli Bolingoli which resulted (along with the Aberdeen players breaches) in Scottish football receiving a yellow card from First Minister Nicola Sturgeon. Both Celtic and Aberdeen were forced to postpone matches as a result of these breaches.
