Celtic will today find out just how many fans will be allowed into Parkhead to watch their UEFA Champions League qualifier against Midtjylland, the Daily Record reports.
Fans have been locked out of Parkhead since March 2020 due to the global pandemic. However, for the first time in 16 months, the Hoops will have 2,000 fans in for their friendly against Preston on Saturday.
But Celtic will want and expect much more than that for their Midtjylland encounter. Hampden Park hosted 12,000 supporters for Euro 2020 matches against Czech Republic and Croatia. Wembley, meanwhile, had around 60,000 for the final against Italy.
The Record believes that Celtic have been highlighting these cases to the Scottish Government .
Scotland is due to go into Level 0 of their roadmap out of lockdown on Monday, July 19th. And as Celtic prepare to see if that remains the case, they’ll expect a bumper crowd for our first competitive match of the season.
Celtic entitled to expect increased fan capacity for Midtjylland
You won’t find a single supporter in world football who doesn’t understand why fans have been locked out of grounds. It was totally necessary and the right thing to do for large periods of the pandemic.
However, we’re coming out the other side of it now, and fans are attending sporting events around the world. Even taking away from the football, there have been other events in Britain that have seen big crowds return.
The Wimbledon final between Novak Djokovic and Matteo Berrettini, for example, was at capacity. Celtic are quite right to highlight as many events as possible with increased spectators in attendance. If it’s good enough for these competitions then it’s good enough for Celtic Park.
Yes, some may say that Euro 2020 was a special case. The same for Wimbledon. But we can’t be allowing fans to attend certain sporting events over others because of its profile. This is supposed to be based on public health and nothing more.
So in the interests of fairness, Celtic look set to get that bumper crowd in the door for next week’s UCL qualifier. And given the toughness of the tie, it’s certainly something we could do with.
Hopefully, we do indeed get some final numbers at some point today.
In other news: CELTIC-linked Piero Hincapie named in Stat Perform’s Copa America Team of the Tournament
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