National clinical director Professor Jason Leitch believes that the football season can be completed but accepts there are ‘challenges’ and highlighted the importance of teams and support staff following the rules.
He also doesn’t think that big crowds will be permitted into stadiums during this campaign but suggested there may be more ‘pilot’ events which would see a limited number of fans inside grounds.
Asked on BBC Scotland’s Off The Ball whether he could see the season being completed Professor Leitch replied: “Yes, I can. The two big challenges there, just to get to completion, is you can see yourself what happens when the virus gets into a club.
“But that’s true in a workplace, it would be true in the BBC, it would be true at my Government offices, so when it gets into a place of work like St Mirren or Hamilton then it does become a big challenge, and that’s why the mitigations and the rules that the teams and their support staff are following are so crucial.
“So I think if that can be controlled we can get to the end. I don’t think we’ll have big crowds this season, and we’ve said that many, many times before.
“We may have small crowds in some parts of the country potentially.
“We may have more pilot events over time, but I think the season itself, we should be able to get to the end if people can continue to follow the rules inside the clubs.”
When asked whether Tiers 0 and 1 would allow for the prospect of limited fans inside stadia he responded: “The fundamental answer to that is yes. A couple of caveats though.
“The Strategic Framework we’ve published is out for consultation, very quick consultation, because we’ve got to publish it this week, the definitive version this week coming, so things might move around.
“So we shouldn’t be completely sure about where things are, and Parliament are going to debate it on Tuesday, so I shouldn’t overspeak around what’s in each level, but Level 0 and Level 1 say ‘Stadia open with restricted numbers’
“Now the other challenge here is to get to Level 1 is pretty tricky. So Level 1 is hard to get to. So you’re going to have to have pretty low levels of transmission of the virus to get to Level 1.
“But, in there is hope. There is optimism about what we might be able to do, maybe around some pilot events again.”
John graduated from Telford College in 2010 with an HNC in Practical Journalism and since then he worked for the North Edinburgh News, The Southern Reporter, the Irish News Review and The Edinburgh Reporter. In addition he has been published in the Edinburgh Evening News and the Hibernian FC Programme.
