WILL CLOSED-DOOR SPORT DRIVE THE FANS AWAY?
KOLKATA/MUMBAI: On May 31, Arsenal supporter Frank Stubbs, who hasn’t missed a home game in 30 years, wrote: “Football without fans attending is not football I’m afraid.” For him, the season ended on March 13 when it was announced that Covid-19 would halt football in England.
In a blog headlined, ‘The Season That Never Was’, Stubbs said the idea of closed-door games is “absolutely mindblowing.” On May 22, he had tweeted: “Am I the only one who couldn’t give a f**k what happens in football until I start going again?”
With a pathogen still virulent, elite sport will mostly be played to empty bleachers and an absolute lack of atmosphere. Possibly till mid-2021, said Dr Nate Favini. That too will be contingent on massively increasing the scale of testing, the American told The Guardian. Or a vaccine must be available. “For people to be travelling, coming together, and in that kind of close proximity, a vaccine is key”, said Dr Geoff M Dreher of the Johns Hopkins University in that report.
How important fans are to players could be gauged by Lucas Ocampos’ salute to empty seats on Thursday when La Liga resumed after 93 days with Sevilla taking on Real Betis. “Even though fans are not here, I still wanted to honour them and make it feel like they were,” said the Argentine after Sevilla won 2-0.
Playing to a vacant cauldron, for Spain coach Luis Enrique, is “sadder than dancing with your sister.” Of watching Bundesliga, Enrique said: “You hear the voices, you even hear the insults... you lose the intimacy of the better moments.” For Thomas Mueller, Bayern Munich’s first game on resumption away to Union Berlin on May 17, felt “a bit like the atmosphere you get for old man’s football.”
‘ENTHUSIASM WILL EBB’
Will fans’ excitement of watching live sport ebb if held at empty venues? Unless it is a short-term measure it will, said Arsene Wenger. “You cannot imagine a whole season without any spectators,” the former Arsenal manager told the beIN Sport network. “Will it damage the show on the longer term without supporters? I am convinced of that.”
TRANSITION WILL TAKE TIME
The transition for fans though will take time, according to Tandon. “For six months I worked with athletes to ensure they are not affected by the crowd. What we are now doing is training them to keep that audience in their head because you can’t make a drastic change. Similarly, fans will slowly adapt to the new reality.” The dire need for spectators though is being addressed.
Bundesliga would see a loss of 300mn euros from television rights if the season isn’t completed, a situation that could force many clubs into bankruptcy. La Liga, which is 1.37% of Spain’s GDP and employs 800,000 people, could lose almost 1 billion euros if the season is stalled. Over 3.5 billion watched the football World Cup in 2018, according to Fifa. The average audience for the 64-game tournament grew by four million from the previous edition to 191 million. Packed venues contributed to that. Cricket, Bijoor said, is also about 60,000 people in a stadium cheering a run or letting off a collecting groan. “What we are seeing now is 75% of that experience, but if you ask me whether I am happy, I would say, yes,” said Dasgupta.