Jason Leitch gives update on potential crowd numbers at Celtic Park this season

By John Reid

October 10, 2020

Scottish Government official Jason Leitch has given an update on the number of fans that could return to Scottish stadiums, including Celtic Park, whilst appearing on BBC Scotland’s Off The Ball.

Leitch, the national clinical director, has disclosed that it will be a slow process. There is no chance of stadiums going from being empty to having 30,000 fans in attendance.

“Going to move in stages”

“We’re not going to go from zero to 30,000, let’s be clear. It’s going to go from zero to 750, to 1500, to 3000. It’s going to move in stages like it has in some other parts of the world. You’ve got to do it when the prevalence is low enough for it to be safe and that’s what we need to do most of all” Leitch said, as quoted by BBC Scotland’s Off The Ball (51:39, 10/10/20).

Celtic Park will welcome fans back one day / (Photo by Andrew Milligan/Pool via Getty Images)

It seems that if any Celtic fans are able to get into the stadium this season, then the attendances will be very low.

It is already bad enough with the stadiums empty. To be honest, it might not be that much better with only 3,000 fans for example in a 60,000 seat stadium.

Still, Neil Lennon and Peter Lawwell would probably still be happy to see any sort of crowd at Celtic Park. It would at least generate some type of atmosphere. That isn’t likely to be happening anytime soon though, as Scotland is currently undergoing a spike in the Covid-19 virus.

Empty stadium for Glasgow derby will take getting used to

This has been a football season like no other. This will be shown when the Hoops take on Rangers next Saturday in front of no fans. A far cry from the 58,000 attendance which watch Celtic take on their Glasgow rivals in the last meeting between the teams in December.

Celtic Park is the venue for the first Glasgow derby of the season / (Photo by Mark Runnacles/Getty Images)

At this rate when the teams take on each other for the second time at Celtic Park next year we will be fortunate to have a crowd of 10,000 at the game.

Thankfully Celtic haven’t been distracted by the empty stands so far this season. The Hoops are still going at the moment. However, it just isn’t the same for the fans. It won’t be until fans return to Celtic Park and other stadiums.

In other news, Mo Elyounoussi is more than capable of making up for his poor Glasgow derby debut.