Celtic are lobbying the Scottish Government to allow 1,000 fans to watch next Sunday’s SPFL match against Motherwell.
On Thursday the Scottish Government announced that from September 14 limited numbers of supporters would be able to attend sporting events with Keith Jackson and Stephen McGowan both carrying the story in the Friday editions of their newspapers.
Celtic and the SRU have been working together to create bio-secure venues at the biggest venues in the country with Murrayfield hoping to host 1,000 fans on August 28.
Hosting 1,000 fans inside 60,000 plus stadiums should be a very straightforward exercise with the main purpose being to establish the protocols to allow the number of supporters to increase week by week.
Covering the issue in the Daily Record Keith Jackson reports:
Record Sport understands the champions’ showdown with the Fir Park club a week on Sunday has been pencilled in as the potential first pilot event for Scottish football as the top flight prepares to reopen its turnstiles to limited number of spectators from next month.
Tomorrow’s Sportsmail back page pic.twitter.com/qHCTIDLHvU
— Sportsmail (@ScotMailSport) August 20, 2020
The Motherwell game is followed by an international break which provides a useful period to examine the impact of the trial match and allow and changes required.
Social distancing of one metre will greatly reduce the capacity of stadiums but the main issue is to ensure that there is no crushing entering and exiting.
That shouldn’t be much of an issue but going forward, game by game, it will have to be closely monitored once crowds get to 20,000 and above.
The return of supporters should provide a boost to the lower divisions which return in mid October. Apart from Partick Thistle and Falkirk none of the clubs in the bottom two divisions regularly attract crowds of over 1,000.