Fans In Scotland To Return To Stadiums From Next Week

Restrictions on large outdoor events in Scotland, including football matches and concerts in stadiums, are to be lifted from next Monday, allowing fans to return to stadiums when the Scottish Premiership's winter break ends. The re-opening will also avoid Scotland's Six Nations rugby matches having to be played behind closed doors at Murrayfield next month.

Since Boxing Day a limit of 500 people at outdoor events has been in place, with Scottish Premiership football teams commencing their winter break early after the news of crowd limit was imposed. Large Hogmanay events were also cancelled as celebrations in Scotland were curtailed to assist with slowing the spread of covid-19 and the related variants.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon told the Scottish Parliament that the limit of 500 people would be removed from Monday, January 17th, allowing Celtic's match with Hibernian on that day to be played before a full crowd at Celtic Park. However, restrictions on indoor events and venues will remain in place until January 24th, when Ms Sturgeon said she hoped to be able to lift them too.

The first minister highlighted there were now signs that the country was “starting to turn the corner” after a huge spike in cases. After the spike before Christmas, limits of 100 people were placed on indoor standing events or 200 if they were seated, while nightclubs had to close and pubs and restaurants had to bring back table service for alcohol and a one-metre distance between different groups of people. People were also urged not to meet in groups of more than three households. The latest Scottish government Covid report however displays that average daily cases in Scotland (2,824 per one million population in the week to January 6th) were higher than in England (2,615 per one million), which has fewer Covid restrictions.

Some clubs, their stadium managers and business leaders across Scotland said that the tougher coronavirus rules had failed to make a “meaningful difference” to infection levels and were causing “enormous damage” to some sectors, with pressure growing on the first minister to set out how Scotland can begin to loosen restrictions and live with the virus, as per the measures in England. Ms Sturgeon insisted that the restrictions had “helped to mitigate to some extent the impact of the Omicron wave”, with positive cases estimated to be about 30,000 a day in early January rather than the initial projection of 50,000 per day. Pointing out that, “It is very likely that the situation we face now, though serious, would have been even more challenging without the renewed sacrifices made by people across the country over these last few weeks.”