No fans at single-leg qualifiers
UEFA keep doors shut
UeFA have ruled that all one-legged europa League and Champions League qualifiers will be played behind closed doors next season.
The news will disappoint fans of Celtic, rangers, Motherwell and Aberdeen as they look ahead to the involvement of their teams. UeFA decreed that games under their jurisdiction should be played behind closed doors until further notice to due to the Covid-19 pandemic. ‘in any case and irrespective of any future decision, for reasons of sporting fairness, as the format of the 2020/21 UeFA Champions League and the 2020/21 UeFA europa League qualification phase has been changed to single-leg matches (either home or away), this decision will apply to all such matches played over one leg,’ said a UeFA statement. rangers still have to play a europa League last-16 second leg against Bayer Leverkusen held over from last season. Final details for that match will be confirmed today but it is set to go ahead at Leverkusen’s BayArena rather than a neutral venue. Scotland’s football authorities, meanwhile, are desperately trying to get fans back at Premiership games within weeks of the new season kicking off but are yet to receive government clearance for even the smallest socially-distanced crowds. First Minister nicola Sturgeon confirmed yesterday that the country was moving into Phase 3 of the Scottish Government’s roadmap out of lockdown. included in that plan is provision for ‘live events (outdoors) — with physical distancing and restricted numbers’ to resume ‘not before July 31’. But that does not mean a green light for even a few thousand supporters to be back at games for the opening rounds of SPFL fixtures on the weekend of August 1 and 2. The SPFL and SFA have been heartened by Scottish rugby continuing to push for their own test event at Murrayfield. The SrU want the August 22 season curtain-raiser between edinburgh and Glasgow to be a ‘pilot’ event. Plans are in place to allow just 1,000 fans into the 67,000-capacity home of rugby, with a number of precautions in place. But holding numbers down to that level has obvious shortcomings for almost all Scottish Premiership clubs. While the game relies on gate money to pay the bills, the prospect of paying extra stewarding costs — as well as carrying out work to maintain social distancing on match day — in order to let a couple of thousand season ticket holders into games makes little financial sense. Long term, the hope is that permission to reach 50-per-cent capacity will be won by September, easing the pressures on clubs forced to impose pay cuts and redundancies just to stay afloat.
Sportsmail understands delicate negotiations over the exact timing of any return are still a long way short of conclusion. And, with Sturgeon making it clear yesterday that singing in church will have to be ‘restricted’ because of the risk of Covid-19 spreading through droplets, the prospect of larger crowds gathering to belt out terracing hymns seems as remote as ever. in fact, as things stand, top-flight clubs are yet to receive the official go-ahead for a series of intraleague bounce games pencilled in over the coming days. Clearance for those closed-doors and training-ground friendlies is expected to be given at some point today.