Scotland looks on as Europe has a plan
This week, Rangers fans looked on from home as their team took on Standard Liege in front of 4,000 fans at the Stade Maurice Defranse in Belgium.
In Scotland, only six-hundred fans have seen a game in person since late March. Two test events which took place in September – one at Aberdeen with three-hundred Dons season ticket holders allowed back into Pittodrie, while 300 Staggies took up their seats in Dingwall to watch their team take on Celtic.
Despite the successful test events, the SPFL clubs were told further trials would be placed on hold. Aberdeen Football Club highlighted that feedback from fans had been ‘resoundingly positive’ despite restrictions on shouting and singing. A planned trial event with five-hundred fans against Motherwell the next weekend was kiboshed by the government.
In the time since the test events in September, there has been deafening silence from the Scottish Government in terms of Scottish Football – with the exception of Jason Leith asking ‘the guys’ to keep the pubs open later for Scotland’s potential penalties.
It seems that any plans that were in place to work towards getting fans back now seem to have been dropped. There has been no further guidance on what we should expect going forward. Although, the recently published Strategic Framework for Coronavirus in Scotland noted that restricted numbers of spectators would be allowed into Stadiums from level one and below. There is however no criteria at all for what constitutes an area going into a tier, and therefore no clear idea as to when we will reach that stage.
Aberdeen chairman, Dave Cormack, this week announced that the club had put a further plan for 1000 fans to head back to Pittodrie for the clash against Celtic this Sunday to the government. He told fans that while these plans had been described as ‘excellent’ and ‘robust’ by the Scottish Government they were simply told ‘a polite’ no. He went on to tell the Evening Express that the Scottish Government had told the club that they are ‘not actively considering pilot events at the moment given the national outlook.’ The fact that there is no plans, given Aberdeen’s willingness to positively engage for a workable solution is of great concern.
The plans would have seen less than 10% of Pittodrie’s capacity filled, allowing full compliance with social distancing regulations. This has caused Cormack to make comparisons with permitted activities such as going to the cinema -or boarding a full plane – both indoor activities. Clubs across the country, and in particular Aberdeen, have stepped up and prepared themselves to welcome back fans with strict procedures and measures in place – it is completely fair for them to now question why they are being left behind with no suggestion of a plan for the future.
Football games are by no means the biggest loss for any of us at a time when we are not allowed to meet with our families. The football industry however as a whole in Scotland is heading towards financial destruction if progress is not made soon. Over the past few months football clubs, like everyone else, have had to make sacrifices.
Right at the beginning of the pandemic difficult decisions regarding finances were made across Scottish football. At Aberdeen players deferred their wages. At Rangers the manager and players had theirs cut and this extended to backroom staff at Celtic. Seven months on – the only real income Scottish clubs have had coming in has been season tickets, aside from any profit made during the summer transfer window.
We are on the way to a situation where it is simply no longer feasible for clubs to keep running as they are – whatever money is still ticking them over just now is soon going to dry up. It’s only too likely that as that starts to happen it’s those on minimum wage, not those on hundreds of thousands, that face the chop first.
In June, Dave Cormack announced that Aberdeen had raised £5 million to aid it in covering the £10 million financial gap it was expecting to face from the pandemic. That estimation was made back when we expected fans to start returning to stadiums in October, and had already doubled from the initial estimate made in March. With expectations now looking into the new year for crowds to be attending games, the financial damage only continues to grow.
Aberdeen is reportedly one of the most financially stable clubs in the SPFL, and that is the situation we are faced with. Less secure clubs will be looking at a much darker scenario.
This is all on the back of a season where clubs have still managed to sell their season tickets.
In Spring, it was expected that season ticket holders would be able to head back to their stadiums, albeit in smaller numbers, by the end of the year. As the suggested October date for fans to head back drew closer, the silence from officials on what would be happening grew louder.
As a result, people who forked out hundreds of pounds earlier in the year are still having to settle for watching the games on their TVs at home. In some cases, this has created the ludicrous situation were households have spent serious cash on multiple season tickets only to share a stream that their friends are accessing for free on streaming sites.
In the Spring, there was a desire among some fans to do what they could to help their clubs. Others had seats to secure for what was due to be a vitally important season. And some were locked down with holidays cancelled, commuting non-existent and events no longer happening and happened to find themselves with a little extra cash on their hips.
As clubs start to think about making the cash flow through onto next year, they must be very aware that these things don’t apply in the same way anymore as we head into 2021.
Not only will the lack of ticket money continue to strain the purse strings of clubs up and down the country, the money coming in from season tickets is very likely to start drying up too.
Just now, there is a black cloud looming over football clubs.
The situation as it stands can only continue on for so long before the lack of revenue begins to also impact on the standard of football in this country. With redundancies and wage cuts first on the hit list, clubs will ultimately have to start giving more consideration to letting their pricey players go. As a result, the quality of players in Scottish Clubs will quickly slide downhill.
None of this is inevitable. Across Europe fans are beginning to make their way back to stadiums. Last month Italy, once the European epicentre of the pandemic, began allowing up to 1000 fans back into open air events, including football matches.
With rigorous procedures in place and proper guidance to follow Scottish Football Clubs should be able to have fans back in Stadiums. If the Scottish Government truly feel that doing so is unsafe, it highlights quite starkly how badly it has squandered our sacrifices over the past seven months.
- Full Disclosure – I am a Dons fan
