FEARS THAT FAN LIMITS MIGHT NOT BE LIFTED

SCOTTISH Premiership clubs were last night bracing themselves for the prospect of continuing to play in front of 500 fans again next week. In December last year, the Scottish Government took the decision to limit attendances at outdoor events to 500 for ‘up to three weeks’ from Boxing Day in a bid to slow the transmission of the Omicron variant of coronavirus. The move effectively placed the country’s top-flight football and rugby behind closed doors and prompted the SPFL to bring forward the Premiership’s winter break by a week to coincide with the crowd caps. Speaking last Wednesday at her most recent Covid briefing, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said: ‘I hope very much we won’t have to go beyond January 17 with these restrictions.’ This raised hopes among

sporting organisations that spectators would return in unrestricted numbers from next Monday, when the Premiership is due to resume with Celtic hosting Hibernian.

Speaking on radio yesterday, though, Scotland’s national clinical director Jason Leitch (below) cast doubt on the prospect of crowd restrictions at sporting events being eased any time soon. He told BBC’s Good Morning

Scotland: ‘I think the protections reduce the size of the wave and they potentially also elongate the wave to allow you to get more people vaccinated, allow you to spread the hospitalisations and intensive care cases out over a longer period.

‘That’s got to be good. Now that’s not always good if you own a pub or if you own a nursery and people are having to self-isolate.

‘It’s a real balance in there between the number of cases and the number of people off work.

‘We’ve tried to make some adjustments in our advice to allow people to do that. But I still think it is the right thing to do to try and reduce that case rate, even if it’s not as severe a disease.’

Leitch’s comments will be a blow to the football clubs who were working on the basis that next week would see a return to business as usual.

The Celtic-versus-Hibernian match is followed by five games next Tuesday, including Aberdeen against Rangers.

With the league having already rescheduled two tranches of fixtures from December 29 and January 2/3, next week’s matches will go ahead whether fans are present in large numbers or not.

With no limits on crowds in England, the notion of Scottish games being played in stadiums south of the border had been floated, although there are obvious practical impediments to this.

The situation should become clearer this afternoon when the First Minister gives a fresh update on the current Covid restrictions during her statement to MSPs, with sports clubs and associations across the country eagerly awaiting the green light to start welcoming back spectators.

The decision also has huge implications for the Scottish Rugby Union ahead of the Calcutta Cup match with England at BT Murrayfield on February 5.

Meanwhile, Ross County chairman Roy MacGregor has estimated that the financial hit his club will feel from Covid-19 is likely to spiral well into seven figures.

The Dingwall club’s bill for player testing alone has already topped £250,000, while the postponement of the New Year home clash against Aberdeen cost County £80,000 in anticipated revenue.

Describing the toll on club finances as ‘astronomical’ since the pandemic began, MacGregor is hoping for Scottish Government moves today to ease restrictions on spectator numbers within SPFL grounds. The chairman said: ‘The cost of it has been pretty astronomical. Our testing bill last year was around £250,000.

‘It is probably harder to determine the overall cost of Covid on the club, taking into account restrictions on spectator numbers and on our hospitality. It is quite difficult to put a figure on it, but it is substantial.

‘If you take us losing the Aberdeen game on January 2, that alone probably cost the club £80,000.

‘Aberdeen’s allocation was virtually sold out, we were sold out with hospitality, and when we play the game on the Tuesday night on February 2, we will not get those numbers in hospitality or the 2,500 fans travelling from Aberdeen.

‘If I had to put a figure onto what we have lost, it could run into seven figures.

‘We’ve seen Aberdeen saying it has cost them over £5m. For us, you would look at a proportion of that. Every club has been affected.’

MacGregor is keen to see a political shift towards allowing more fans at games, adding: ‘I’m hopeful that we will get more supporters back when the games start. Whether it will be enough to satisfy everyone, I don’t know.

‘I think there’s a feeling now that lockdowns are not the way to go.

‘Clubs and individuals are maybe saying we are going to have to live with it and deal with Covid — we are better just getting on and doing it.’