‘Huge relief’ for indoor sport as fan limit is lifted

THE lifting of restrictions on indoor sport in Scotland has been hailed as a “huge relief” by some of the clubs affected.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon announced that curbs put in place to slow the spread of the Omicron variant of Covid-19 would be lifted from Monday. That means limits on indoor crowds will end and adult indoor contact sport can resume after being ruled out since Boxing Day.

Crowd limits on outdoor events were lifted from this Monday, with close to 60,000 attending Celtic’s cinch Premiership encounter with Hibernian.

Across the road from Celtic Park, the Glasgow Rocks basketball club have been limited to 200 fans at the Emirates Arena.

On hearing the First Minister’s announcement, Rocks owner Duncan Smillie told Sky News: “Immediate reaction is one of relief in all honesty. Apart from it not being any fun without our fans here, it’s just not financially viable. So the fact we can put fans in here from next week is a huge relief.

“We would regularly have 1,5001,700 people for games on a Sunday afternoon and for these latest round of restrictions we have only been allowed 200 people in.

“Every time that happens it costs us in excess of £10,000. This is a sport that’s got very little money. We have had to cancel games, postpone games, reschedule games so it really has hit us in the pocket over the past four or five weeks”

Glasgow Clan ice hockey club welcomed the “fantastic” news, and added on Twitter: “We can’t wait to welcome the Purple Army back to @ ArenaBraehead.”

The national agency for sport, sportscotland, has been working closely with Scottish Governing Bodies of Sport to help manage the issues the restrictions have thrown up.

The chief executive of sportscotland, Stewart Harris, said: “The sport sector has shown real resilience over the course of the pandemic.

“We know it has been an incredibly difficult and frustrating period for many sports and we are grateful to them for their patience and understanding.”