WELCOME TO GROUND ZERO

How 300 people will get the ball rolling for the game’s top flight

THE Premier League have decided it takes 300 people just to stage a modern top-flight football match.

Leonidas famously held up the entire Greek army at Thermopylae with exactly the same number.

But compared to what we are used to, the Premier League is about to have a very spartan feel. The Matchday Operations Plan, which will be voted on today, will put strict limits on those allowed in when the Premier League resumes with Sheffield United’s trip to Aston Villa in 13 days, with Arsenal heading to Manchester City two hours later.

There will be no tunnel bust-ups, angry managers knocking on the referee’s door or stars being mobbed in the media mixed zone.

Before and after play, players will be kept apart – emerging from the dressing rooms separately so even the very best aimed slice of pizza is unlikely to cause a fight.

The five officials – a spare is allowed in the stands to observe the other four and step in should injury strike – will get changed

in a separate part of the stadium, well away from irate bosses wanting a ‘quiet word’.

And the 25 newspaper reporters allowed into the ground will be told to remain at their desks from the moment they arrive an hour before kickoff. The post-match press conference will be conducted ‘virtually’ from seats in the stands via Zoom.

The area they occupy in the bowl of the stadium will be known as the ‘amber zone’ – one step beyond the car parks and entrance areas that comprise the ‘green zone’.

It will be shared with 10 directors and executives and a maximum of just six football scouts – one from each of the opponents in the participants’ next three games.

In all, just 105 golden tickets will be handed out for what has been dubbed the ‘red zone’ – the pitch, the tunnel and dressing room areas. Mascots are banned, regardless of whether they are young children or grown-ups dressed as garish latex animals.

Playing squads will be limited to 20, comprising the usual 18-man match-day squad plus two on standby, although Chelsea chairman Bruce Buck will table a motion today to add the extra two to an increased bench of nine from which five substitutes can be chosen.

Support staff are restricted to just 12, while four doping officers will be lurking to conduct the usual random tests.

Just beyond the ropes, it is the broadcast media who swell the numbers way beyond the 215 allowed into Bundesliga games. The host broadcaster – Sky, BT, Amazon or the BBC – will be entitled to 98 accreditation passes.

Just 15 international commentators will join them, the rest of the globe relying on commentary on the pictures beamed to their own countries. Alongside them – a safe two metres apart – will be 15 radio commentators.

Together with pages of reports in the newspapers, the Government hopes the media coverage will help to convince the country that things are returning to normal.

For those privileged 300, though, it will certainly be a very different normal.