Meeting #3 with Glasgow Host City Stakeholders – 03/06/2021

The third Hampden meeting was on Thursday 3 June.  In addition to ATAC there was various representation from the Glasgow Council Host City Mobility Team, FSE, BTP, UEFA, Czech fans groups.

Key Point!

Food & Drink Kiosks to remain closed.


Full summary of meeting below.

Attendance

Percentage breakdowns of where Hampden ticket holders live was provided.  Unsurprisingly, the largest percentage for all four matches is Scottish.  In order of the four Hampden matches the Scottish percentage for each one is currently 60%, 38%, 56% and 65%.  Respectively these are for SCO/CZE, CRO/CZE, CRO/SCO and Last 16.  There are reasonable attendances for the Croatian and Czech support despite uncertainty of if these fans can travel.  It does sound like a lot of these PNA tickets are being transferred to CZE and CRO fans resident in UK who will not have to quarantine.  There are very few fans expected to travel from CZE and CRO to attend the matches owing to the required potential 10 day quarantine period on arrival.  If restrictions are eased then there is potential for airport shuttle transfers to be laid on.

An interesting point is that most Euro2020 matches have around 5% to 7% of German nationals.  This is a regular things apparently and is mostly ground hoppers.

Any unsold tickets will go on public sale via UEFA.  How many there will be and when this will be is unknown.  I’d expect this to be announced by UEFA if it is going to happen.

Transport

One of the meeting attendees is responsible for authorising the bus parking permit requests.  He will be doing that this week.  The expectation is that once authorised, the person who made the booking will get email confirmation which will contain a pass that can be printed off and displayed on each bus. The UEFA EURO 2020 app now contains some good info about what to expect for travelling to Hampden.  Note that industrial action by RMT will take place on Sundays for a period of time so be mindful if it affects your plans.  Trains in Scotland will be “dry” until we reach Level 0.

Stadium

Currently, no covid testing is required for matches at Hampden.

Your tickets will now show your entry slot.  Expect an email from UEFA for all matches next week.  There will be follow up emails and then a further one on Match Day -2.  We should expect the UEFA Apps to also start pinging notifications as the matches approach and even as individuals approach the stadium.

There will be a UEFA fan shop within the stadium perimeter.  The UEFA app states that no food and drink is to be brought in as “there will be plenty of options to choose from once you’re inside”.  It was announced at the meeting that the kiosks would be closed and that free bottles of water would be available inside.  A suggestion was made that fans can bring in a small snack, an energy bar was given as an example.  I pointed out that this was unacceptable.  I also advised that we would find it difficult to encourage fans to arrive for the early entry slots if they were to remain inside the stadium for potentially 5+ hours without any food.  The reasons given for no food outlets was that socially distanced queuing could not be guaranteed.  FSE pointed out the fact that UEFA fans shop were being permitted and this would pose the exact same challenge.  FSE are escalating this on our behalf and we will see how this goes at the start of next week.  I would suggest you make your members aware of this now – I am genuinely angered by this decision.  I have subsequently pointed out that this is unacceptable for fans with certain medical conditions and also that no other entertainment industry would enforce such draconian sanctions be it rugby, cinema, theatre etc.

We have had a few enquiries about the possibility of taking bagpipes to the game.  The UEFA rep will follow this up. 

*Materials published on this website and in this article is the copyright of the Association of Tartan Army Clubs, and may not be quoted or reproduced without prior permission