Spectators will not be able to return to sporting venues in England until May 17 at the earliest, the Government has said.
The news formed part of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s ‘road map’ for the easing of lockdown restrictions to limit the spread of coronavirus, which was announced in the House of Commons on Monday afternoon.
With the exception of any approved trial events, the news rules out the possibility of fans attending any further regular-season matches in the EFL, and all but the final round of Premier League games in the 2020-21 season.
But it does leave open the possibility of spectators returning to events over the summer, such as Euro 2020, Wimbledon, cricket internationals and county matches, depending on whether the conditions for easing restrictions have been met by May 17.
Indoor events will be capped at 50 per cent capacity or 1,000, whichever is lower, and for outdoor events this will be 50 per cent capacity or 4,000, whichever is lower.
The road map includes special provision for large, outdoor, seated venues where crowds can be safely distributed, allowing up to 10,000 people or 25 per cent of total seated capacity, whichever is lower.
Pilots will also run to examine how such events can take place without the need for social distancing using other mitigations such as testing, the Government said.
The road map set out the lifting of restrictions in four steps. At each one, the success of the vaccine rollout, vaccine efficacy, the presence of variants and infection rates will be measured before deciding whether to take the next step.
The Prime Minister said there would be a minimum five-week gap between each step.
The easing of restrictions will happen on a nationwide, rather than a regional, basis.
In the second part of step one – not before March 29 – organised outdoor sports for children and adults can return, and outdoor sports facilities such as tennis and basketball courts can reopen.
At step two, which would be from April 12 at the earliest, use of indoor leisure facilities such as gyms for individuals or household groups will be possible.
All children will be able to attend any indoor children’s activity in step two, including sport, regardless of circumstance, the Government’s road map documents said.
Alongside the partial reopening of sports venues at step three, organised indoor adult sport will be possible.
Pilot events for the return of spectators are expected to begin as part of the Government’s Event Research Programme from April.
These will use “enhanced testing approaches and other measures to run events with larger crowd sizes and reduced social distancing to evaluate the outcomes”.
Findings from pilots across the sport and cultural sectors will be brought together to develop a “consistent approach” to removing capacity limits as part of step four – which would start no earlier than June 21.
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 here