No fan fuss for ISSA
KEITH WELLINGTON, president of the InterSecondary Schools Sports Association (ISSA), said his administration is not concerned at this point about a potential ban on spectators for this season’s schoolboy football competitions.
There is still doubt over whether or not ISSA will receive the green light for the upcoming campaign, which is due to begin in September, owing to the ongoing issues with the coronavirus disease.
However, ISSA has been developing safety protocols in the event that they will be allowed to stage a season, but Wellington made it clear that they are not too bothered at this stage about possibly not having fans at matches.
“It (fans at matches) would not be of concern to us just yet, as we are still a few months away from any competition. So the issue of crowds is not yet something
that is up for discussion,”
‘It (fans at matches) would not be of concern to us just yet, as we are still a few months away from any competition. So the issue of crowds is not yet something that is up for discussion.’
Wellington told The Gleaner.
“If we are going to have schoolboy football, when the time gets closer to a start time, based on what exists at the time in terms of government policy, we will determine what kind of impact we would have with or without crowds,” he added.
Schoolboy football matches typically generate significant crowd support and with the majority of games taking place at school venues, keeping fans away could pose a challenge for the organisers.
Wellington noted that although this is not a major point of discussion, they are looking into the potential issues.
“Of course, we are looking at scenarios if we are not allowed to have crowds, but it is not something that is major right now,” Wellington said. “That is not a point of discussion because we are that far away. We are too far away from the season for crowd control to be a major part of our discussions.”
“We haven’t reached the point where that has become a major issue. If we get to that stage, then that would mean we have already passed the stage where we decide on having a competition. So we haven’t gotten to the stage where we would have considered the impact of having a no-spectator order,” he stated.