Cases of the virus continue to rise in Scotland with 5000 of them being registered today. It’s another big jump which means that cases have jumped threefold in the space of a week … that’s a dire, awful number and one that should concern everyone.
I’ve written on this site about the necessity of wearing masks at the games. It’s not just for your own good but for the good of those around you. Something big has happened to lead to such a huge leap in cases and it seems likely that full houses at the football has something to do with it. Cases were falling until restrictions were fully lifted, and although a rise was expected the size and scale of it will have concerned everyone in the government.
It will also have concerned people in football. Cases in Scotland are now at their highest since the crisis began; that’s a hard number. Hospital admissions and deaths haven’t reached a critical level but it seems likely that they will if case figures continue going up.
The club needs to think about this in two different ways. First, in how they re-iterate the importance of masks inside the stadium and second, how they prepare for the Europa or Conference League groups stage games which will be coming after tomorrow.
Whichever competition we are in the ticketing policy will need to be realistic and it will need to take into account the possibility that we may not have full houses for the games.
Asking fans to pay big money for those matches before we have a clear picture of what the national situation might be would be crazy. The pricing must reflect the possibility that full houses might not be possible. The club can hardly claim to be surprised if attendance numbers need to be cut; the First Minister has made it clear that she’d consider it.
Celtic must be preparing for a worst-case scenario, and although that might seem to suggest ticket pricing at the higher end of the scale to cover losses in other areas like concession stands and other match-day income it would be simply wrong to ask the fans to pay over the odds for tickets when there’s no way to know if they’ll be able to watch them.
Something reasonable and sane, something that respects the difficult times we’re living in, would be much more appropriate … and the club must be thinking along those lines.
Totally agree something must be done
No, mate the stadiums will be effecting it negligibly compared to the schools returning
I emailed Celtic after the FK Jablonec game, which I attended, saying I felt obliged sadly to leave the match at half time as despite instructions on my ticket to mask up as a requirement for attendance, hardly anyone was in my stand area. That looked to be the case pretty well all around the stadium that night.
With the new evidence on how near useless the blue masks are, probably would not make a lot of difference if worn, but clearly something has to be looked into or ticket instructions made effective. With the recent changes to fans access, it’s becoming clear it’s football attendees by not mask wearing, and being packed into stadiums again is the main contributor to the daily rise in infections from just over 1000/day then to today’s current figure you mention. The Clubs need to be investigative and urgently pro-active if as it seems there is a problem, and not bleat if the government comes down on them once again.
For economic and pleasure reasons clearly the clubs are desperate to have the fans back, and the fans glad to be back. But if they don’t police their grounds by requiring masks, plus preferably seat spacing, with rise in infections it’s going to be done for them again by the government.
I’d not heard back from Celtic supporters link to my comment made then, except an acknowledgement of it’s receipt.
They were always going to jump, since easing restrictions. They keep saying x amount of new cases today…..they are not ”new cases” but ”positive tests”, a case is when you actually have symptoms or get unwell. The greater percentage of ”positive tests” actually come to nothing or very little, so its smoke and mirrors reporting by the Govt.
We have to live with viruses as they have always been here and always will be.
This constant scaremongering is the main constraint to us getting back to somewhere near normality.