Will closed-door sport drive fans away?
On May 31, Arsenal supporter Frank Stubbs, who hasn’t missed a home game in 30 years, wrote: “Football without fans attending is not football I’m afraid.
” For him, the season ended on March 13 when it was announced that Covid-19 would halt football in England.
In a blog headlined, ‘The Season That Never Was’, Stubbs said the idea of closed-door games is “absolutely mindblowing.” On May 22, he had tweeted:
“Am I the only one who couldn’t give a f**k what happens in football until I start going again?”
With a pathogen still virulent, elite sport will mostly be played to empty bleachers and an absolute lack of atmosphere. Possibly till mid-2021, said Dr Nate Favini.
That too will be contingent on massively increasing the scale of testing, the American told The Guardian. Or a vaccine must be available. “For people to be travelling,
coming together, and in that kind of close proximity, a vaccine is key”, said Dr Geoff M Dreher of the Johns Hopkins University in that report.
How important fans are to players could be gauged by Lucas Ocampos’ salute to empty seats on Thursday when La Liga resumed after 93 days with Sevilla taking on Real Betis.
“Even though fans are not here, I still wanted to honour them and make it feel like they were,” said the Argentine after Sevilla won 2-0.
