Firstly, congratulations on promotion We had the following article posted on the LCFC board, an insight and the considerations into how fans might return to the game. I wanted to share with your own 2WhiteStripes aka Mr Foxy and thought it might be something you all might appreciate reading too. Hoping that FFC have a fabulous season (except when playing LCFC obviously ). An article from The Athletic on the return of fans next season. A mathematician by training, Dr Aoife Hunt has spent the last decade studying how people move through busy places like airports, hospitals and stations. She is one of the UK’s leading authorities on evacuation modelling, using data and software to work out the safest way to get us out of buildings in a hurry. But in recent weeks, Hunt has been studying a different type of evacuation. “I have learned a lot about urinal behaviour, which isn’t something I thought I would ever have to say,” she tells The Athletic. “Maintaining social distancing with those big troughs is going to be difficult. And then you have the handwashing, which we want to encourage but I’m told is not something many fans have been doing. “So clubs will have to look at one-way systems through the toilets, Perspex screens to create gaps and hand-sanitiser dispensers. Some clubs already do some of that and some will be able to do it without too much trouble. “But every ground is different. Some will have to move the concourse outside the ground and bring in lots of portaloos. Some just don’t have the space to do that. “I suspect you’re only going to quote me talking about toilets now but the concourses will probably be the biggest factor in working out what each ground’s new capacity is, so toilets are important.” Sorry to live down to expectations Dr, but sometimes the easiest way to tackle the biggest problems is to start with the fundamentals. The reason Hunt has learned so much about what does and does not happen in the men’s loos at half-time is that the company she works for, Movement Strategies, is part of the army of experts working on football’s plan for the phased return of fans in the COVID-19 era. As Premier League chief executive Richard Masters puts it: “Football is not football without fans and the Premier League won’t be fully back until we have fans supporting their teams, in person, in our grounds.” You hear the same message from every other league and every club, and it is echoed by the government and local authorities. If all goes well, grounds will be allowed to open their gates to fans again in early October. It is a goal everyone is working hard to achieve, listening to each other and sharing best practice. But how we get there will differ for each club and possibly each fan, as the habits we have developed — where we park, where we meet, how many pints we drink, when we arrive, who we sit with, what we eat, when we leave — will have to be put aside. There will be no going back to the way things were before the lockdown — not for the foreseeable future, anyway, and maybe never. The Sports Grounds Safety Authority (SGSA), the government agency responsible for ensuring safety within stadiums in England and Wales, has issued 85 pages of draft guidelines to help football clubs come up with social-distancing plans. This has been reinforced by courses, videos and webinars, with further guidance coming from the Football Safety Officers Association and the leagues. At the same time, the leagues and FA have been taking part in regular meetings with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, public health experts, other government departments and other sports, while most clubs have also been consulting their trusts and affiliated fans’ groups. On Wednesday, the Football Supporters’ Association (FSA) and representatives from six trusts will present their hopes and fears to the Premier League in their first “structured dialogue” meeting since November. As per the new normal, it will be a video-conference call. There is much to discuss at that virtual meeting and all the others between now and the first fan getting temperature-checked at that allocated entry time. Here are the key issues up for debate… Stadium capacities It is hoped most clubs will be able to operate with capacities of about 30 per cent of their usual maximum but no two stadiums are the same in terms of dimensions, design and surroundings. Some clubs, blessed with roomy concourses, wide staircases and plenty of space outside to put in the type of temporary concession stands and toilets you might expect to find when they are staging concerts in the off-season, will achieve that target relatively easily, and may even be able to fit a few more in. Premier League clubs like Brighton & Hove Albion, Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur will be confident their grounds are in this category. Others with tight corners, pinch points and close neighbours might struggle to go much further than 20 per cent, at which point some may have a financial viability issue, particularly those further down the league pyramid. Top-flight clubs Crystal Palace, Everton and Newcastle United should not have that concern but they might not reach the 30 per cent mark under the current guidelines. Maintaining social distancing once the fans are actually seated is the easy bit. Each individual, pair or small group of fans will be spaced out around each block of seats to ensure there is at least a metre between them. How each club will configure this will depend on the dimensions of their seats, rows and gangways. Some may have to leave alternate rows empty. In line with the general rules, fans from the same household will be able to sit together, as will groups of up to six people from two different households. Larger groups will lead to fewer “killed” seats but engineering this will not be easy and clubs will not be able to discriminate against fans who want to sit on their own or with one or two others. But the major considerations for each ground’s new capacity will be how fans get to the stadium, how they then get to their seats, how they move around the stadium and what happens when they leave. It is telling that one of the first pieces of advice the SGSA put out was to tell clubs to save their pre-lockdown CCTV footage. The more clubs know about how and when their fans arrive at the stadium, the better. There is no point drawing up clever plans to keep people apart for the two hours or so they are on the premises if no thought is given to what happens outside the gates. This is where the clubs will work closely with their safety advisory groups (SAGs), which help local authorities decide if stadiums are safe or not. Some clubs will likely have to assign arrival times to avoid overloading buses and trains, crowding at the gates and congestion in the concourses, with fans also being held back after the final whistle to allow for an orderly exit. The leagues are also talking to clubs about park-and-walk schemes and even temporary bike sheds. All of the factors mentioned above will go into each club’s capacity calculation, and that is before we even mention the possibility of local lockdowns or second waves. That said, the success of Project Restart and the gradual reopening of the wider economy suggest that whatever number is agreed for the first few games with fans could increase as the season progresses. Tickets Once clubs know how many fans they can fit in, they can then start to work out which fans can come in. Last season, there were almost 800,000 seats available across the Premier League’s 20 stadiums but three-quarters of those were filled by season ticket holders. If we use 30 per cent as a benchmark capacity for this season, the league’s most loyal fans will only be able to attend one in every two and a half games they have paid for. Of course, some fans will not want to attend games this season for health or financial reasons. And others simply might not want to attend games under the current circumstances — masks are likely to be mandatory, sitting down will be enforced and, as mentioned, leaving with five minutes to go “to beat the rush” might not be possible. In fact, protecting these fans’ rights to stay away this season, without losing tickets or facing any financial penalty, is one of the priorities for several supporters’ trusts. But if, as expected, some do stay away, those who do want to attend games this season may get to see more than half of them. But that is not all of them, is it? So clubs will either have to use ballots or loyalty points-based systems to allocate tickets fairly, with season ticket holders receiving refunds for each game they are not given a seat. The headaches for the ticket office do not end there. In the track-and-trace era, clubs will have to know exactly who is in the ground, which means passing season tickets around friends and families, without informing the club, is a huge problem. As this has been happening at some clubs for decades, this has led some fans’ groups to suggest an amnesty so clubs can update their records. It is also unlikely that season ticket holders will be able to sit in their usual blocks, let alone seats, as the different permutations of groups for each game could see them tour the stadium throughout the campaign. Where this leaves fans who depend on membership schemes, or whatever is left on general sale, to see a few games every year is unclear but the best guess is they will be left outside. Clubs will understandably look after their best customers first, not least to avoid dishing out regular refunds. Which leads us onto another set of supporters that will be some way down most clubs’ list of priorities. Away fans There are actually relatively few rules about ticketing in the EFL and Premier League handbooks, as clubs have jealously guarded their rights in this area but there is a rule about allocations for away fans. In the top flight it is “3,000 tickets or, if the capacity of the home club’s stadium is less than 30,000, such number of tickets as is equal to 10 per cent”. But with every club trying to ensure as many of their season ticket holders get in, almost all are asking if they have to accommodate travelling supporters at all. They are also pointing out that managing away fans will be more complicated from a safe entrance/exit point of view and collecting track-and-trace information. There are also legitimate questions about the sense of encouraging large groups of people to travel from one part of the country to another, especially if we continue to see localised lockdowns over the next 12 months. Some fans’ groups, however, have pointed out that all teams, particularly the bigger ones, draw support from outside their home towns, so that argument is a little overstated. However, nobody will want to test that theory, so it is very unlikely that there will be any away fans at games initially. It is possible, though, that some clubs — perhaps those with bigger capacities — will look to do reciprocal deals with other clubs on away supporters. For example, two London clubs might agree to house a small number of each other’s fans. If this sounds a bit sterile, it is simply the way things will have to be until the pandemic is properly behind us. Even in Germany, which has a proud reputation for a fan-friendly football culture, next season will be very different. In a recent vote, the Bundesliga clubs backed four proposals from their FA: no booze, no away fans, no standing and personalised tickets. Food and drink The provision of provisions next season will come down to two considerations: 1) how big and well-equipped your concourses are and 2) if they are not very wide and up-to-date, do you have room outside for “bolt-on” concession stands and toilets? Tottenham, for example, with their cathedral-like spaces, will be optimistic they can sell their artisan pies, line-caught sea bass and the craft beers they brew on-site, while Everton will wonder which, if any, of their burger bars they can open. Some EFL clubs have already told The Athletic they are assuming they will not be able to sell any food and drink inside their grounds at all. But Spurs, along with Brighton and Manchester City, do not just want to offer as much food and drink to their fans as normal, they would also like to be able to sell alcohol to fans in their seats during the game — something that has been illegal in England and Wales since 1985. In Scotland, fans are not allowed to drink alcohol in grounds at all. The EFL has been calling for a review of this legislation for years, as have fans’ groups around the country. The FA and Premier League have been quieter on the subject but they, too, are understood to believe the law is out of date and unfair. After all, fans of almost every other sport can drink during games, even when those matches are played at football stadiums, and football clubs can sell beers at music gigs, too, despite them being far more tightly packed than any football crowd. The three clubs mentioned above believe they would be able to serve fans in their seats, US-style, with orders placed via apps and the stadium wifi. This would alleviate congestion in the concourses and encourage fans to stick to their allocated entry/exit times. It would also, of course, bring in a bit more cash. Other clubs, however, just do not have the connectivity to handle a system that sophisticated. The Athletic has spoken to several trusts and officials at clubs and leagues, and all of them said they thought the time was right to at least trial the sale of alcohol so it could be drunk within sight of the playing area. They pointed out that it was unlikely any fans would be getting drunk during games next season and if they were, the reduced capacities would make it very easy for stewards to spot them and throw them out. Some senior sources within the game say there is political support for such a change, too, just as laws have been relaxed to allow pubs without outside space to set up tables on pavements and public highways. This, they say, is because there is a realisation that the game is facing a massive financial challenge and clubs must be given every possible means to make some money. But The Athletic understands the issue is just not on Westminster’s agenda at the moment. That might change but the idea there will be an Act of Parliament to temporarily suspend the Sporting Events (Control of Alcohol etc) Act 1985 in time for someone to bring you a pint of Beavertown Neck Oil just after kick-off this autumn is a bit of a reach. Checks, masks and passports We have left off vaccinations, as we are all still waiting for those, but there is a feeling that going to football matches this season will be a bit like going on holiday. And one German team, Union Berlin, is even considering trying to stretch the “bio-secure bubble” idea to include their fans by testing them for COVID-19 within 24 hours of kick-off. Nobody in British football is talking about that, though. What we are expecting, however, is temperature checks for everyone on arrival and the wearing of masks. That has certainly been the case for everyone who has been attending behind-closed-doors games as a journalist, club official or steward: basically anyone outside each stadium’s “red zone” that is reserved for players, coaches and essential staff. The Premier League is also keen on “clinical passports”, an app-based checklist for COVID-19 symptoms and contributing factors. How effective these will be in actually controlling the spread of the virus is open to question but they may provide another layer of “reassurance”, which is the word that keeps coming up in conversations with clubs and leagues. Streaming passes But what if you are not reassured or fail to get a seat in the ballot for that weekend’s big game? For the last two months, British fans have been able to watch any game they want, live and legally, many of them on free-to-air channels. It is a right many fans around the world take for granted but The Athletic revealed last month that next season will see a return to our usual schedules. The rights are auctioned off every three years and the number of games made available to broadcasters has been creeping up. But, as of today, UK fans will only have the opportunity to watch 200 of next season’s 380 Premier League games live, with Sky Sports owning the rights to 128 of those, BT Sport 52 and Amazon Prime the remaining 20. Sky owns the live rights for EFL games, too, and it will broadcast up to 118 of the 460 Championship games and at least 20 League One and League Two matches. EFL fans, however, do have the option of streaming games via the league’s iFollow service or their club’s own video streaming product. It is an option Premier League fans have been wanting for years and now more than ever. The Arsenal Supporters’ Trust recently published its five priorities for next season and number four is: “For the club to make arrangements for fans who can’t attend games to have access to a TV ticket pass/streaming for that game. “With capacity greatly reduced, and a return to the broadcast arrangements that see only half the games broadcast live, it will be important to make TV access as easy as possible for fans not at the Emirates stadium.” Many other fans’ groups agree. “Fans who watch their team regularly home and away, or even just at home, have to accept they may not be able to watch live regularly next season,” explains one member of a leading trust, who wished to remain anonymous. “At the end of last season, season ticket holders got free TV passes so they could at least watch their team. “Now, unless there’s a similar arrangement, many fans won’t see their team play unless they get a pay-TV subscription and their team is chosen for a televised game. But every game is filmed. There will be a streaming market: fans wanting to watch their team. “Most season-ticket holders and members have paid a fee of some sort, so there’s an argument for including a streaming option in what they’ve paid for until they can get in the ground. Even if there’s a small charge, there’s an opportunity because digital businesses can offer cheap products on a huge scale. “Can clubs really be happy with their fans not seeing their team? Does that make sense if there is a worry about habits being broken and fans drifting away? If the rights package prevents any such deal, is that the best evidence yet that the TV tail is wagging the football dog? That the game has given too much power away to TV?” This is not an argument anyone at the Premier League wants to enter into now, particularly as it is still negotiating last season’s rebate to broadcasters for finishing the season late and in empty stadiums. But, privately, many in the game see the sense of giving fans more of what they want, which would also please sponsors and dissuade people from watching illegal streams of broadcasts intended for overseas viewers. Manchester City, Premier League, fans Phil Foden celebrates scoring against Arsenal in front of a display showing pictures of the team’s fans in June (Photo: Dave Thompson/Pool/AFP via Getty Images) On Friday, with delicious timing, Spurs contacted their season ticket holders to tell them they had free access to all three of the clubs’ behind-closed-doors pre-season friendlies: home games against Ipswich Town, Reading and Birmingham City. Non-ticket holders can watch these games via the club’s N17 Live streaming service for £20. The counter-argument to streaming everything is the impact this might have on lower-division football. It is telling that the FSA did back the temporary lifting of the restriction against broadcasting live games on Saturday afternoons for the lockdown period, and will perhaps do so again this season, but does not support a permanent change to the Saturday 3pm blackout in the UK. What happens next? Well, Hunt has been at The Crucible this weekend to continue the crowd dynamics studies she and British professional sport wanted to conduct for the last fortnight. The World Snooker Championship was one of three sporting events earmarked for a “return of fans” trial last month, along with a few games of county cricket and some horseracing at Goodwood, but those plans were rudely interrupted when the government saw signs the infection rate was ticking up again. Those fears have allayed slightly and prime minister Boris Johnson announced on Thursday that test events could continue, hence Hunt’s late opportunity to catch Ronnie O’Sullivan in action in Sheffield, and the football industry is now scrambling to join the pilot project party. It had initially been hoped that the traditional season curtain-raiser, the Community Shield, could be one of those test events but it was not included on the original list and the suspension of the tests ended any hopes of it being added later on. But every ground will need at least one rehearsal before opening night and this is likely to be a game with half of the ground’s revised capacity. The EFL is understood to be keen on using September’s early rounds of the Carabao Cup or EFL Trophy for their test events. A more sarcastic observer than us might suggest trying to fill 15 per cent of the ground is a bit ambitious for these fixtures. That is a bit unfair, though, as nobody can dispute how hard the clubs, leagues and local authorities are working on getting fans back into stadiums. And as with Project Restart, Zoom calls and elbow bumps, it will all seem very strange to start with but then become less weird with each passing week. While nobody is pretending we are anywhere near getting through this crisis yet, football has already proved itself to be collegiate, resilient and resourceful. The game and the government always talked about the return of fans being the fifth and final stage in sport’s resumption. We are four-fifths of the way there and while the final fifth will not be completed until the Amex, the Etihad, Old Trafford, St James’ Park and Roots Hall are packed to the rafters again, you have to start somewhere.
