Rangers hosted the last match in Scottish football to have been played in front of a full house
Scottish football fans could return to stadia in September.
That’s the hope of national clinical director Jason Leitch, who believes a successful vaccination process could pave the way for supporters to be in their seats by the early stages of next season.
The last match to have been played in front of a full house in Scotland prior to the shutdown was Rangers’ Europa League first leg against Bayer Leverkusen at Ibrox on March 12.
The scheduled meeting between Steven Gerrard’s men and Neil Lennon’s Celtic side three days later was called off due to rising concerns over the coronavirus pandemic, and in the 10-and-a-half months since the vast majority of Scottish football matches have been played behind closed doors.
Speaking to Aberdeen chairman Dave Cormack on BBC Radio Scotland’s Off The Ball, Leitch said: “I would hope that, by September, the whole country vaccinated, nine million doses of vaccine. That’s huge and a massive logistical exercise.
“We will have to see what the vaccine does, we’ll have to see if we’ve managed to not import the virus again with travel restrictions.
“If we get that right as a nation, yes, there could be crowds in September.
Looking ahead to Scotland’s Euro 2020 matches, The Scottish Sun this week quoted microbiologist Professor Hugh Pennington of Aberdeen University as saying: “The message should be you can only come into a stadium to see the team in real time if you behave yourself.
“Transmission rates outside are 20 times less than inside.
“So if you had social distancing you could probably get away with it. But only if the virus levels were really, really down ten-fold – maybe even more.
“Many factors have to be taken into account before you even consider it, never mind allow it.”
Leitch, however, was reluctant to talk numbers.
He said: “I am not sure I would put a numeral value on it. It is more complicated than the prevalence.
“It is dependent on hospital capacity, on what version of the virus we have at the time, if we have managed to vaccinate everyone and we haven’t had vaccine escape from the virus, but his fundamental point is right.
“We have always said this. The way to get stuff open, and the way to get stuff back to normal, is of course to have low prevalence of the virus.”
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