NICOLA Sturgeon has hinted the “brakes may have to be put on” a return of fans to Scottish football stadiums.
Aberdeen vs Kilmarnock and Ross County vs Celtic will act as pilot games on Saturday, with 300 home fans allowed into each fixture.
It had originally been planned that Septempber 14 would mark the wider reopening of limited attendances at SPFL grounds.
But the First Minister warned plans to hold more spectator events may be put on hold after the weekend's test matches, due to rising cases of Covid-19.
Sturgeon is due to give an update on lockdown restrictions tomorrow in Holyrood.
Sturgeon said: “I've said a few times this week, I've used terms like 'putting the brakes on', perhaps not going ahead with things we'd hoped to go ahead with given the evidence we're seeing right now.
"People can draw a direction of travel from that, but in terms of detail I'm duty-bound to set that out to Parliament tomorrow.
"And, in any event, the way we take decisions in these three-week reviews, we haven't yet finalised the decisions we're taking on these things.
"On the test events, we're thinking very carefully about all of this.
"We decided some weeks ago that we would (have test events), and this makes sense and is important before having (fans back in).
"A few weeks ago we might've hoped this would be sooner than it might turn out to be, to have spectators back in stadiums.
"We thought it would be sensible to do some pilot events to test the protections and the public health arrangements.
"There was a rugby test match that took place at Murrayfield a number of weeks ago with spectators in and we given permission for a couple of other events, football, to happen over the next few days.
"But clearly we are in a changing situation right and I think, certainly, in future we may be a bit more mindful about things like this while the numbers are looking like they are."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel