Thousands of fans to return to stadiums in time for final day of Premier League season

Plans are in place to allow Premier League stadiums to welcome back up to 10,000 fans from 17 May, as part of the UK Government's roadmap out of lockdown.

Boris Johnson will reveal plans on Monday that will outline the easing of lockdown in England. The Prime Minister is expected to lay out four broad 'phases' with the endgame of far greater normality by the summer.

Sporting events will figure into the plans, and the Associated Press' Rob Harris reports on Twitter that fans will be permitted to return to stadiums from phase 3 - which is pencilled in for 17 May at the earliest.

All going to plan, that would allow up to 10,000 fans to attend games on the final day of the Premier League season, which takes place on 23 March.

Plans would see stadiums with a capacity of 40,000 or greater, such as Old Trafford, Anfield and Stamford Bridge among others, capped at 10,000 spectators.

Stadiums with lower capacity would be capped at 1/4 of their maximum attendance.

Prior to the introduction of these plans, the government say they will run a "series of pilots using enhanced testing approaches and other measures to run events with larger crowd sizes and reduced social distancing to evaluate the outcomes," which will start in April.

The announcement comes as good news for England's hopes of welcoming fans to stadiums for the European championships. Seven games are due to be hosted in London, but UEFA will only permit fans to attend games in countries which have held a minimum of two successful test events by the time the competition starts in June.

Test events taking place in April, followed by a full round of league fixtures in May, would stand the FA in good stead in that regard.


Source : 90min