The UK Government has ‘paused’ its plans to allow fans to return to sporting events.
The majority of sports were due to welcome groups of fans back to watch events in a socially-distanced manner from October 1, with four rugby league games scheduled to host supporters the day before, on September 30.
The rise in coronavirus cases, however, has risen in the past month, with the UK’s Covid-19 alert level now on 4, meaning transmission of the virus is ‘high’ or ‘rising rapidly’.
Therefore, in the aim of reducing further spread the Government has pushed back its pilot programme.
Speaking to BBC Breakfast, cabinet office minister Michael Gove said: “We were looking at a staged programme of more people returning – it wasn’t going to be the case that we were going to have stadiums thronged with fans.
“We’re looking at how we can, for the moment, pause that programme, but what we do want to do is to make sure that, as and when circumstances allow, get more people back.
“The virus is less likely to spread outdoors than indoors but again it’s in the nature of major sporting events that there’s a lot of mingling.”
