Saints won’t get a green light for fans

THE extension of coronavirus restrictions last night dashed St Mirren’s hopes of testing the return of fans to grounds. Saturday’s Premiership clash with Hibernian in Paisley was one of three matches put forward to the Scottish Government as a potential pilot by the SPFL. Last night, however, new lockdowns were applied to Renfrewshire and East Dunbartonshire. And, as

Sportsmail first revealed, Holyrood have already decreed that no football test events will take place in affected areas ‘for the duration of the restrictions’. Rangers have been denied the chance to host 300 fans at Ibrox for Saturday’s clash with Dundee United after the restrictions were re-imposed in Glasgow city, West Dunbartonshire and East Renfrewshire.

And while the SPFL expect to learn which games will be given the green light today, there is an expectation that St Mirren will now follow Rangers in being ruled out. The Ross County v Celtic match in Dingwall is expected to be given the go-ahead to host around 300 supporters, while Aberdeen v Kilmarnock at Pittodrie has also been put forward.

Aberdeen’s official Twitter account last night confirmed: ‘We are now expecting confirmation tomorrow that our application for a test event with 300 season ticket holders for Kilmarnock has been successful. 750 fans for our match with Motherwell should also be confirmed later in the week.’ The other matches on Saturday are Livingston v Hamilton and Motherwell v St Johnstone.