English Football Spectators Are Ready To Return To The Stadium

One of the matches in the English League (Twitter @premierleague)

JAKARTA - The manager of three league competitions under the Premier League, the English Football League (EFL), stated that English football viewers are likely to return to watching at the stadium.

The EFL said Tuesday local time that the government has given permission to start the trial for up to 1,000 general spectators to attend matches in live stadiums this September.

The licensing is a step forward from various local-level trials among clubs that have begun to allow a small number of spectators to attend live matches, of course with the strict implementation of COVID-19 prevention protocols.

The agenda of returning spectators to the stadium is indeed one of the priorities for many football players in England, because most teams experience financial difficulties due to the loss of income from the sale of match tickets.

"EFL is in constant communication with the government regarding this pilot program which will likely include a number of pilot matches this September with a limit of 1,000 spectators," an EFL spokesman was quoted as saying by Antara.

"EFL believes that the practice of maintaining distance can still be applied in the stadium stands and at the same time cannot ignore that the presence of spectators at matches is enough to help the club's financial condition, which is still depressed," he added.

"Therefore, the success of this pilot program is an important aspect in being able to safely bring more spectators to the stadium in the future," he said.

EFL will bring the results of the pilot program as material for discussion with the government regarding plans to bring the audience back to the stadium in October.

Last week, the Premier League operator said it would postpone the pilot program for a maximum of 1,000 spectators, because it was deemed inappropriate and likely to be very costly.

It's just that, Chairman of the Premier League, Richard Master, predicts that the absence of spectators at the stadium will cause the 20 club participating in the league to suffer a total loss of up to 700 million pounds (approximately Rp. 13.3 trillion).