Football's coming home ... or not?

So, when will we see the great game of professional football return to the UK? When will see the likes of Scott Brown kicking lumps out of Alfredo Morelos or that much anticipated and potentially title winning Liverpool derby? Do we miss it, yes, we do!  

Holmes Miller, as one of the leading architects in the UK specialising in stadium design, has given some light-hearted thoughts to how this could happen.  Paramount to all will be maintaining the safe social distancing guidelines of 2 metres separation.

In terms of the main event, will there be a requirement for players to maintain 2-metre social separation on the park.  In the past, following another SFA review after another World Cup qualification disaster there was talk that one of the ways the Dutch improved their skills was by banning tackling.  Could you imagine a midweek League One match between Accrington Stanley and Burton Albion where the players were not allowed to tackle each other. There would be almighty uproar from the Cowshed of the Wham Stadium demanding “get stuck in” or maybe the fans would love it as we finally get that free flowing continental-style football we have dreamed of.

Does the 2-metre rule become part of football like the offside rule.  Each player would have to wear a GPS tracking device and when a player encroaches within less than 2 metres of a player in possession of the ball the referee gets a beep on his device. 3 beeps and that player will receive a Social Distancing (SD) Card and be sin binned for 7 minutes.

When football returns will it be played behind closed doors or will there be limited and safely controlled access for spectators? How would this work while maintaining the 2-metre rule?  When the Saturday matchday experience returns, it will be whole new sanitised experience. No more congregating before the match in your local pub with your mates, no more queuing for a pie and Bovril or even the half-time queuing for the toilet.

A stadium is typically made up of grandstands that include internal spectator concourse and an external seating deck.  The internal concourse includes food concessions, toilets and entry turnstiles. From the concourse access to the seating deck is via vomitories and gangways. Holmes Miller has reviewed several layout options and based on a variety of social groupings, the maximum capacity we can envisage, while maintaining the 2 metre rule, is between 12-15% of a stadium capacity. For a 40,000-capacity stadium that equates to 4,800-6,000 spectators!  You would end up with stadiums full of ‘Billy No Mates’ which is what the end stands at The Stadium of Light can look like on Wednesday evening fixture.

The logistics of up to 6,000 spectators arriving / exiting the stadium will be challenging. With a reduced capacity of 1200–1800 spectators per stand, the combined length of queue required per stand is 2.4–3.6km.  The only way to reduce this is by staggering the entry/exit of the stadium into spectator group before and after the match. There will no turning up with 5 minutes to go and leaving 5 minutes early to miss the traffic. Plus, there will be no traffic. Entry will be ticketless via and app on your phone. Likewise, all purchases in the stadium will be contactless. Once in the ground you will have an opportunity to purchase a refreshment and visit the toilet, then you will be directed to your seat by a steward, in full PPE, with all other members of your group before the next group are allowed into the stadium.  At halftime, the regular 15-minute break will be extended to 40 minutes to allow the individual spectator groups to visit a food concession and toilet. There will no allowance for toilet visits during the match!  

There may a commercial opportunity to develop inflatable spectators to give the stadium a sense of a capacity crowd.  The footballing authorities could commission the BBC light entertainment sound engineers to create a matchday soundtrack that responds to the on field matchday events. No more questionable sectarian chanting from the terraces.  Let us just hope the sound engineers do not get their commissioned soundtracks mixed up and we hear ‘I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles’ blasting out over the PA at Stamford Bridge.

While in Germany, the Bundesliga has submitted a proposal for restarting the league on the 16th or 23rd May.  Headline statistics including a maximum 300 people in the stadium at one time. Regular testing of players and staff.  Everyone entering the stadium will have to fill out a COVID-19 questionnaire and have their temperature taken.  The bounty for the Germans is the completion of their league and release of €300m of outstanding broadcasting funds to the clubs.  The German Department of Health and Safety goes further in its recommendations suggesting that all teams and their staff should go into quarantine for the duration of the remaining nine games. It has just been confirmed that Clubs in the top two German divisions have returned 10 positive results from 1,724 coronavirus test.  If the government sanctions this proposal the Bundesliga is set to become the first major football league in Europe to return to competition.

The question of when will the UK football authorities adopt similar measures? There appears to be no appetite for football to return in the UK behind closed doors by the clubs or the governing bodies will consider all options. The cynic says money talks and where there are large sums of money due from broadcasters then the footballing authorities will try and move the goal posts safely to allow football to return. In England, Premiership players have started to return to training last week. Even so, it does seem highly unlikely that professional football will return anytime soon other than via reruns on Sportscene and Match of the Day. We will have to be put on hold viewing the meteoric rise of young Billy Gilmour at Chelsea FC.

Visit www.holmesmiller.com/work for more information on our sport projects and sector experience.