Celtic release statement regarding new crowd restrictions

Celtic are riding a high at the moment after clinching the Scottish League Cup against Hibernian on Sunday thanks to a magnificent brace from Kyogo Furuhashi. But things are not looking too bright for the immediate future for football as a whole, as new crowd restrictions were announced today. Only 500 people will be allowed to attend matches for a three week period beginning on December 26.

It is safe to say that that is far from ideal and would essentially mean playing games behind closed door atmospheres. And there are some big games coming up for sure.

That includes the Glasgow Derby at Parkhead between Celtic and the Rangers, which is scheduled to take place on January 2.

Of course, public safety is the most important thing. Celtic do appear to have a solution for this situation. They released a statement on the club’s official website and confirmed that they had requested the SPFL to bring the winter break ahead:

"Everyone at Celtic recognises the difficulties presented to society by the current pandemic, and the health and safety of all must always be our priority.In light of today’s announcement regarding supporters attending matches, Celtic can confirm that it has today requested that the SPFL bring forward the scheduled winter break and reschedule the fixtures affected by the regulations announced.The game owes it to supporters to explore all opportunities to maximise the prospect of all supporters being able to attend matches and support the game they love."

Celtic release statement regarding new crowd restrictions

That sounds like a pretty good solution for the situation that the Scottish clubs find themselves in. The winter break was scheduled to take place from January 3 to January 21.

Thus, it would make a lot of sense to bring it forward so that no fixtures are affected by the new restrictions.

As we would like to point out again, the health and safety of the public is much more important than any game of football. As a result, every decision must be taken keeping that in mind first.

And bringing forward the winter break in the current situation does sound like something that would solve all the problems that have been presented. Now, it remains to be seen what decision the SPFL ends up taking.

As things stand, Celtic are scheduled to play St Mirren in midweek in the Scottish Premiership.