Scottish Government’s football restrictions don’t add up in many different ways…
Today we got the bad news that the Scottish Government have placed restrictions on football which will kick in on Boxing Day. In under a week’s time Scottish clubs will only be allowed to permit 500 supporters entry to their stadiums on match day. Fair enough, they want to restrict the spread of the Omicron strain of Covid-19 and surely have people’s health at the forefront of all their decisions but a lot of what they will be initiating on the 26th in regards to football doesn’t make sense.
The ‘500 supporters only’ thing really bugs me. Celtic Park can hold 60,000 people. 500 people in the stadium sees it less than 1% full. Yet a club further down the SPFL ladder can also permit the same amount of supporters and could be potentially 50% full? You can guarantee that the Covid safety measures at a modern footballing arena such as Celtic Park are a lot more stringently adhered to than at some smaller ground elsewhere which wouldn’t have the facilities or staff to implement them.
So why hit the bigger clubs so hard? It just doesn’t add up. Yes I understand they don’t want people travelling etc but a 500 person restriction is ridiculous. Surely it should be done fairly that takes all clubs and the size of their grounds into consideration. If they done it by making the restriction a percentage of what their stadium can hold it would make a lot more sense. If it was 10% for example it would mean 6,000 at Celtic Park which the ground could easily accommodate while maintaining social distancing.
People like myself are now in the predicament where we either don’t bother travelling over, losing out on the cost of our flights and accommodation, or still travel anyway. So say for talks sake a lot of people do travel anyway and by the way I am in absolutely no way advising it. Then you have the problem that will happen whether people travel or not anyway, people are going to flock indoors with others to watch the games. Don’t forget football has been hit hard but hospitality venues will still be open for business.
The Scottish government have effectively stopped fans going to a stadium where they will be outdoors in the fresh air but what’s the alternative? People will pile into bars throughout the country or in to each others houses to watch the matches. In small enclosed areas with no ventilation. Either way fans are going to congregate for important matches such as the ones played over the holiday period but now instead of having them out in the fresh air they will be indoors with X amount of other people.
There is also the financial cost to a huge football club like Celtic. It’s bad enough that fans are going to be out of pocket due to these changes but the club’s will also take a huge hit. Celtic’s matches against Hibs and theRangers were both sell outs, so money lost on revenue will be massive. Compare this to the only match our Glasgow rivals will lose out on, their boxing day match against St Mirren at Ibrox, and again we can see that Celtic are once again damaged more than any other club.
One way around this is cancelling the fixtures all together and playing them at a later date when fans are once again permitted to enter stadiums in large numbers. Celtic have asked for this and hopefully the Scottish footballing authorities take heed. No it won’t help the fans who have already went to great expenses to travel to the games but it will help the club financially as well as making it fairer on the sporting side of things.
Hopefully we get a positive update from the SPFL soon in regards to Celtic’s request but I have to say I’m not confident they will do the right thing. They very rarely do.
Conall McGinty
Spot on TRIF have already banked the cash from the first game against us and had the benefit of none of our fans there. They always come out good when Covid is involved. I am hearing TRIF club and the Celtic game against st. Mirren have been awarded 0-3 Celtic , and 0-4 rangers a last minute tavernier penalty being the difference.
Stand up to the tyrants or forever live on your knees. This is not and never has been about a virus or keeping people safe, it’s about control and a few other things. The lies they have told for nearly 2 years and people still follow their nonsensical rules thinking puppets like sturgeon and johnson care about them. There are no excuses for people that believe this scam, the greatest crime against the people of the world ever seen. There is no pandemic, there never was, a plandemic to give it it’s correct title.
Gie’s peace with all that anarchist crap. As far as I’m aware almost every other country is doing much the same things to blame Sturgeon is laughable. That’s all you lot are ANARCHISTS who couldn’t run a raffle.
Martin away and gie’s peace, spout your rubbish to a group of intensive care staff and I’m sure they would put you straight. People like you give a decent conspiracy theory a bad name why do you think the vast majority are queueing for their vaccines they’re not as silly as you and your ilk.
Lets hope the SPFL are sensible and bring the winter break forward by one week. If they don’t then the team will just have to get on with it and lets hope Big Ange can motivate our players in silent stadiums a lot more than NL could last season.