Scottish Cup final: No fans at Hampden as Uefa starts work for Euro 2020 finals

Image source, SNS

Image caption, The Scottish Cup has reached the last 16 stage
  • Author, Chris McLaughlin
  • Role, 大象传媒 Scotland sports news correspondent

There will be no fans inside Hampden Park for next month's Scottish Cup final.

The 22 May showpiece will be held just three weeks before 12,000 supporters will be able to watch Scotland's first match at the European Championships inside the same stadium.

But the ground comes under Uefa event control from 14 May.

And Europe's governing body will have already started preparation work for Euro 2020 before the final.

The Scottish government on Wednesday gave approval for Hampden to accommodate 25% of the stadium's capacity for four matches scheduled there during the finals.

Uefa had given the 12 host cities until Wednesday to submit plans for fan attendance, with the likelihood of some venues being switched if no guarantees could be given.

A final decision from the governing body is likely to come on Friday, with Scotland due to face Czech Republic on 14 June.

The Scottish FA reached an agreement with Uefa that allows the domestic final to go ahead at the national stadium.

However, as part of that agreement, no fans are allowed due to preparation work in the stands.

Under the Scottish government's Covid plans, large events can take place with some fans from 17 May, but it now seems unlikely there will be any football test events before Scotland kick off in their first major tournament since 1998.

Disinfection pods and vaccine passports are not expected to be used for the matches at Hampden, Scotland's national clinical director has said.

However, while Professor Jason Leitch stressed that "the detail has still to be worked out", he said: "I think there will be some what we call non-pharmaceutical interventions in place.

"I imagine there will be distanced queuing, I imagine we will control public transport differently from how we do it and people will be distanced in the stadium, so tickets will be distributed in groups if we manage to get to that point where we've got 12,000 people in the stadium."

Prof Leitch said decisions about face coverings are still to be made and that Uefa rules as well as Scottish regulations must be considered.