TATTERSALL: FAN RETURN DECISION IN BALANCE
NATIONAL League chief executive Michael Tattersall says time is of the essence as elite sport awaits the outcome of a crucial Government review into the return of crowds.
The 2020/21 campaign is set to start on October 3 for Non-League’s top-flight, but the league is yet to receive the green light for crowds to be readmitted.
Prime Minster Boris Johnson said in mid-July it was the Government’s intention for fans to return from October 1 although a recent spike in Coronavirus cases led to pilot events being limited to 1,000 spectators.
However, the National League received a boost this week with the confirmation of four test events involving eight clubs from across Steps 1 and 2 scheduled to take place this week.
“It’s good news the National League has been officially approved to have test events,” Tattersall told The NLP.
“Those test events are part of a wider programme to demonstrate spectators can be readmitted and matches can go ahead in a Covid-secure way.
“To be able to test it out is a key stage to see that they work in reality and clubs can then share that feedback with the rest of the league and we’ll go to the next stage of broadening it out across the league.
“I appreciate cases are rising but the objective is to demonstrate you can attend football matches with social distancing and it’s safe to do so.”
But Tattersall and his member clubs are in the hands of a government review into whether the test events across all sports have worked adequately.
“It’s only in recent days that we’ve learnt there’s a review and we hope that the review doesn’t completely take us off the course of commencing the season with social distancing,” he said. “We hope to hear some developments this week. We can’t be finding out on September 30, time is of the essence.
“We’ll have to see the outcome of that, look at the detail and hopefully that will give us confidence for the future of the clubs as businesses and there will be a pathway that makes sense and is workable which we can follow and start the season. It’s a really critical phase.
“The clubs have done their part, the leagues have done their part, we’ve imparted the information, the clubs have liaised with their local authority, we’re following the government’s advice very closely and we’re, really, in their hands.
“We’ve made it clear we would like to have at least 1,000 spectators allowed back in stadiums. We feel we could get underway with that level for the National League.”
Until the National League know the outcome of the review, they will not make a decision on whether the season will start on October 3 regardless of whether fans are allowed in.
“We’ve always been very careful never to make any decision in advance of knowing the facts and the detail,” added Tattersall. “We’ve issued our fixtures, we’ve listened to the Prime Minster’s statements, we set the start date as October 3. We’ll have to see what the government’s update is before we commit on behalf of our clubs and we have to listen to what the clubs say as well.”