Basketball with public is back: Roanne faced Saint-Chamond in front of 1500 spectators
I am glad to hear that Chorale Roanne played their first friendly game against Saint-Chamond with the public. The French squads faced each other in front of 1500 spectators according to the official web of the host team. The fans were happy to see a basketball game live after 5 months of break.
This is good news for entire Europe, especially for the countries where the federation and the government don’t know what to do, being so scared by the Coronavirus that they won’t allow the public in the arenas for the next season. It’s the case of Romania and Lithuania till now, but I am expecting that this good example of France to open the mind of the authorities from all the countries of Europe.
Basketball has to be with spectators. Sanitary measures have to be respected as well. Social distance, cleaning the hands with sanitizing gel, wearing face masks – all of them excellent methods to prevent any risk, but that’s all, folks! To ban the public is the worst idea ever! Against the sports, against the fans, against the sponsors, against the economy! Tickets have to be sold and the arenas have to be used by the public. As I suggested in a previous article, reducing the number of fans in the arenas is the solution. Let’s say we admit 500-1000 people in an arena of 10 000 seats. Like this, we respect the social distance. Not allowing anybody is the biggest mistake and it doesn’t help us against Coronavirus. Without a vaccine, the disease will stay with us years and the only solution is developing a global immunity to Covid-19. The virus won’t stop only because no fan will come to see basketball games. The bars, restaurants, beaches, metros are full of people, remember? Why basketball has to suffer a different treatment?
Image: Darko Stojanovic from Pixabay
