Scottish government’s announcement is good news for Celtic

It looks as though Celtic could potentially play in front of a small number of fans very soon, despite a prior rejection by the Scottish government.

It should come as a surprise to absolutely nobody that Celtic would like to have fans back at Paradise as soon as possible. The club have endured a tough start to the season and have struggled to find the back of the net with the frequency that they have been known to in the past. Having the home crowd’s support back could spur them on to rediscover their best form.

After the club’s attempt to host fans for the Motherwell match this weekend was rejected by the Scottish government earlier this week, a new report from the Daily Record shows that the club could have fans back as soon as September 12.

Scotland’s national clinic director, Jason Leitch, has spoken on BBC Soundsport defending the decision to host fans at “test matches” across multiple matches of Scottish football next month. As transcribed by the Daily Record, he is quoted saying:

"“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… 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.”"

He also went into detail about the scrutiny clubs will face before being able to host fans:

"“The other thing, remember, is no stadium is going to get the go ahead until their plans are signed off. Each stadia in turn will have to prove its safe, even if we’ve done a larger event for the whole country.”"

The three matches currently marked as potential test matches include Celtic at Ross County, Rangers against Dundee, and Hibs at St. Mirren. As of now, if approved, there could be potentially 300 fans allowed at each test match. Even that is a positive though and down South they have already started to let fans back into stadiums with 2,500 fans in attendance when Brighton and Hove Albion hosted Chelsea in a pre-season friendly earlier today.