NOVEMBER | COVER FEATURE wellbeing screening on the day to make sure neither they or any of their household have Covid-19 symptoms .”
DRIVING CHANGE
While many of the safety systems are similar for the PGA European Tour , championship director Mark Casey says the golf course environment presents unique challenges : “ We ' re not in a fixed stadium where you can guarantee where everybody sits and when they arrive . We have a much bigger site and much longer day , so we ' re going through the protocols of looking at how we can manage the audience flow because our gates are open from 7am to 7pm .”
Casey says the organisation ’ s elite golf tournament activity came to an abrupt end in March before events recommenced in July without audiences .
“ We ' ve been playing every week since and our aim is to play all the way through to Christmas , week-in week-out ,” he says .
Recent months have seen the organisation stage events in the UK and Austria sans fans , and in Spain and Portugal with “ some limited hospitality ”, but Casey says the aim is to get audiences back as soon as it is viable . “ We want to start getting crowds back and to deliver benefits to our sponsors ,” he says .
Naturally the pandemic has also resulted in some major changes for players and their teams . Says Casey : “ We have players from 25 different countries , and caddies and associates , coming in . We have a very diverse mix of people at the events so we ' ve worked with DCMS and created tournament bubbles at all events . We have an exclusive bubble from hotel to venue . In some locations we have hotels on site so that has made it a lot easier .
“ We have put some really strict protocols in place . As well as having testing before anyone comes into the bubble there are daily symptom checks . We have gone through everything from the playing side ; looking at all touchpoints from flag sticks to hole cups . Things like that are sanitised on a daily basis . Other protocols include players signing their own scorecard rather than handing it across to a fellow competitor .”
TESTING TIMES
To avoid queues of people turning up wanting to buy tickets on the gate , the RFL is moving towards electronic entry systems , and all tickets being sold in advance .
“ A further advantage of that is details of all the ticket purchases are recorded and the data can be fed into NHS Test and Trace ,” says Moorhouse .
All RFL players and pitch-side personnel are tested for Covid-19 on a weekly basis . The challenge , says Moorhouse , is extending that to fans .
An antibody test provides details of whether an individual has had Covid-19 and has the necessary antibodies to fight it off in the future . It is relatively cheap to administer and , as has been suggested on numerous occasions , could be used to provide a passport to enable fans to buy tickets for and attend events .
Unfortunately , it seems the passports would only be available to a small portion of the population . Chris Whitty , Chief Medical Officer for England , has said under 10 % of people have Covid-19 antibodies .
Moorhouse says mass temperature testing also presents challenges : “ There is dialogue across the board about the issue of taking temperatures when fans arrive at games but if you temperature test fans as they come in you have to turn away anyone whose temperature is above the relevant level .
“ If you start turning people away with high temperatures you then have to deal with the l issue of how they exit the venue , because you can ’ t have them walking in the opposite direction to the rest of you fans as they enter the stadium .
Moorhouse believes that communication with fans is essential when it comes to crowd safety , and that sports stars have an important role to play in encouraging good behavior .
She says , “ One of the great advantages sport has is you have an incredibly loyal fanbase , and in general they will listen to what the club says and they certainly will if you ' ve got your star players telling them they need to act in a certain way .
“ The return of sport can be used by the government as a really good means to get messaging out there , and what better way is there to demonstrate to a broad audience what ' s meant by social distancing than having that in operation at sports grounds ?”
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