(ats) This is a first in Europe, where the resumption of several national championships was done behind closed doors.
The size of the stands will be reduced: spectators will be distributed so as not to occupy more than one seat out of four, with at least one horizontal row of separation between them. “The clubs organizing the meetings must ensure that social distance is maintained in the stands in order to guarantee the conditions of epidemiological control,” warned the national federation (MLSZ) in a statement Thursday.
Fans of the modest teams of Kaposvar and ZTE, respectively last and penultimate of the championship, will be the first to inaugurate this device for the meeting between these two clubs, Friday evening in the Kaposvar stadium which usually has 7000 seats.
Five other league matches will be played on Saturday and Sunday. One expected between the Ferencvaros Budapest, leader of the championship, and Puskas FC, club of the birthplace of the Prime Minister Viktor Orban, big fan of football. The match will be held at the Pancho Arena, a recent 3,500-seat stadium located near the secondary residence of Viktor Orban in Felcsut, a village of 1,750 inhabitants located some 40 km from Budapest.
Hungary is not known for its crowded stands with an attendance of stadiums of 3000 spectators per match on average, outside Budapest where the Ferencvaros meetings attract thousands of supporters. This low attendance in terms of the capacity of ultra-modern stadiums built since the coming to power of Viktor Orban prompted some ironic comments on social networks on Thursday.
The few European countries which have relaunched their championship in May, or are about to do so, are playing behind closed doors. Hungary, which has a population of 9.8 million, counted more than 3,800 cases of infection with the new coronavirus since the start of the epidemic and more than 500 deaths on Thursday. After the rest of the country where restrictions have been gradually eased, the city of Budapest will be able to fully reopen its bars and restaurants on Friday.
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