Scottish government take decision on return of football fans
By StevieMac
The Scottish government have taken a decision regarding the return of football fans inside stadiums as we seek to return to normality.
It was a much anticipated step on the return to normality for football and for Celtic. Hopes were high of getting approval from the Scottish Government. But those may have been ‘Bolingolied’ with news of a firm refusal coming through.
Celtic had hoped to help the testing of fans events in a safe, controlled, self distanced manner by arranging for around 700 fans to attend the home match this weekend against Motherwell. A bid had been submitted by football’s Covid-19 Joint Response Group. It felt like a promising request and plan given that Scottish Rugby has fans back inside Murrayfield at Saturday’s match between Glasgow Warriors and Edinburgh.
There was always the potential risk of not getting as warm a welcome from the Scottish government as it might have had before the Bolingoli and Aberdeen 8 transgressions. That may have come to fruition as news breaks of a firm decline to the request:
"“Record Sport understands the Minister for Public Health, Sport and Wellbeing Joe FitzPatrick cancelled a scheduled conference call with the game’s Joint Response Group and Parkhead chief executive Peter Lawwell after booting out the request to reopen the stadium to limited numbers for Sunday’s visit of Motherwell.”"
As yet there aren’t any signals for when a fresh bid might be considered. So far, no reason for the decline appear to have been provided.
The Daily Record carries reports of Scottish football chiefs feeling snubbed and of a raging Peter Lawwell. Let’s hope he doesn’t come across Bolingoli in the ground at tonight’s match or it could get messy!
Chris Sutton also had his say earlier and wasn’t amused.
Good to see the rugby test event still getting the go ahead though on Friday... rugby fans obviously a much better bunch https://t.co/DIP8UyfuYc
— Chris Sutton (@chris_sutton73) August 26, 2020
Other fans have mixed views with some taking glee in a decline for Celtic, but others more sensibly recognising that this was not about one club but Scottish Football overall and that means it’s not good news.
Folk rejoicing at this because it's Celtic need to look at the bigger picture. Any test event in football speeds up the process of us all getting back. No surprise that yet again football fans are treated differently to everyone else by this government. https://t.co/OwtZXo0bST
— Craig Anderson (@craig_killie) August 26, 2020
We’ll have to let the response group dig deeper into why and consider their future options. Let’s hope something sensible can be worked out soon as a first step to test the way.