Scottish football: Why it's time to consider letting fans come back in limited numbers and give free tickets to 'Covid heroes' – Richard Leonard

I have a confession to make. Next year will mark the 50th anniversary of the first professional football match I attended. It remains a vivid memory. Leeds Road, Huddersfield, 21 August 1971.

A crowd of cardboard cut-outs watches St Johnstone's David Wotherspoon take a shot during a Betfred Cup match against Motherwell (Picture: Ross MacDonald/SNS Group)

Leeds United versus Wolverhampton Wanderers. Leeds banished from Elland Road at the start of the new season by the Football Association following a pitch invasion after an offside goal was allowed to stand. Leeds losing the league title by a point. After years of watching football on black-and-white television, here it was so much bigger, and so much more colourful, the old gold of Wolves and the white of Leeds. No matter it was a goalless draw, the scale of the occasion took my breath away.

Which is why in the nine months that crowds have rightly being kept away from professional sport on Covid safety grounds, fans have been left emotionally bereft by this enforced absence.

Like football fans across Scotland, I share the acute sense of loss of what is the very soul of our national game, the ever-present crowds of supporters who turn out in all weathers to cheer on their teams.

Give fans hope

However, the decision to keep crowds away from games throughout the pandemic has been the right one to save lives and protect the public.

Restrictions on big gatherings must remain until a vaccine has been extensively rolled out, and enough of the population is immunised against the virus.

A limited number of socially distanced fans attend an American football game between the Green Bay Packers and the Chicago Bears on Sunday (Picture: Mike Roemer/AP)

However, with very limited crowds due to be allowed to return in England, we should look at a similar slight relaxation of the rules for Scottish football, subject to stringent Covid safety measures.

We have to give football supporters and other sports fans hope.

Not long after the start of this Covid-ravaged football season, Scottish Labour called for a ‘Scottish Football Aid Fund’.

This was aimed at providing financial assistance for parts of the national sport that faced meltdown caused by the loss of matchday income, due to the ban on crowds.

Two months later, we are still waiting for the Scottish government to announce a package of support, despite some long-established clubs pulling out of league competitions.

When Finance Secretary Kate Forbes delivers her budget in January, we need something substantial aimed at saving the parts of grassroots football in Scotland that have taken such a hammering.

Momentous period in Scottish football

Almost a month ago, I wrote to the First Minister, asking her to consider lifting restrictions on amateur football in Scotland, in a way that would be consistent with Covid safety procedures.

Tens of thousands of amateur footballers have been deprived of something that was not only a shining light for local communities in these dark times, but which also delivered physical and mental health benefits.

However, Nicola Sturgeon has retained the ban on amateur competitions, even though they follow similar Covid safety rules to professional and semi-professional leagues, whose fixtures continue.

The First Minister could still set out a timescale for when we can return to these much missed and loved ‘park football’ matches.

It’s in that spirt that I appeal to her to work on a cross-party basis, and with Scotland’s football community, to agree a clear timetable for the safe return of crowds, ahead of what could the most momentous period in Scottish football in decades.

With the men’s national side’s qualification for next summer’s European championship, we have a historic opportunity.

After the sacrifice, suffering and sorrow of Covid, we should view next year’s Euros as part of a healing process.

As we strive to return to a post-Covid football world, with crowds, as well as active leagues and competitions at all levels, we have a golden opportunity to do things differently.

When fans return to the turnstiles, we must look to curb ticket prices, even offering free admission to those on low incomes and key workers who are Scotland’s Covid heroes.

A ‘Scottish Football Aid Fund’ could be used to help clubs deliver that in partnership with the sport’s governing bodies and the leagues.

TV broadcasting rights

There also remains the critical issue of broadcasting rights over professional sport, too much of which means many sports fans are excluded from viewing games of national importance.

With household incomes severely squeezed by Covid, hard-pressed fans should not have to fork out for expensive satellite TV subscription packages to watch the beautiful game.

While broadcasting remains a legislative area reserved to Westminster, we must use the post-Covid football era to push for a new deal for fans, so that top-flight matches are routinely available on terrestrial TV.

When behind-closed-doors football returned late this spring, arrangements were brokered for some live matches to be shown via terrestrial TV and digital boxes while Sky simultaneously broadcasted the games.

Many Scots missed out on seeing all Scotland’s international qualifying fixtures due to Sky holding the rights, while coverage of England’s qualifiers for Euro 2020 and the 2022 World Cup was available live on free-to-air television as ITV has retained exclusive rights.

When we emerge from the pandemic, it should not be beyond us to remake our national game so that the ‘crown jewels’ of football coverage is on free-to-air TV, and where fans are not priced out of top-level football.

I still have the official programme and the ticket from that first game I went to: the programme, replete with cigarette adverts, cost just 5 pence, but the ticket for the main stand was a pound. Even then football was not cheap. A few weeks later I went to my first home game when Leeds entertained Liverpool, managed by the great Bill Shankly.

We could do a lot worse than listen to his words and philosophy as we contemplate building back better after Covid. “The socialism I believe in,” said Shankly, “is everybody working for the same goal and everyone having a share in the rewards. That’s how I see football, that’s how I see life.” I agree.

Richard Leonard is Scottish Labour leader

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