You touch on an interesting point about the treatment of locals. Not everyone in Portugal is happy that they are hosting the game, not least their own football fans who have had altercations with police. At a time when Portuguese fans are being told that they can only have 10% capacity in the grounds, their government will have a very hard time justifying an exception that allows 12,000 people to travel from another country, swan around on the piss for a few days and go to a game. They are elected officials after all.Cant see it but happy to be corrected. Portugal is on greater alert after the mass gatherings of Sporting Club's fans and the 'altercations' with the police a few days ago , resulting in a fear of a spike in infections. Portugal is trying to be cautious over whom and how they let people into their country , just as the UK couldn't afford to have one rule for UEFA dignitaries , whilst we in the UK have been coping with lockdown etc.
Portugal took on the final, and will set the rules re: fans visiting . My annoyance , is that Porto was given the green light . Like a lot of people we had 4 nights booked, flights etc( albeit all cancellable) looking forward to it etc, only to find later on in the day, that whole thing was looking totally different . The devil was always in the detail . Portugal said all along that visiting the country had to be for essential reasons. football doesn't fall into that category.
This is catching a lot of fans on the backfoot.
I suppose you can't rule out a change in situation again but I think it's very likely that the bubble system will be the only way to see the game. I think that the situation we have now will be the situation on 29th May.If the UK announce any further restrictions due to this variant of concern from India (Bolton and London the hotspots) does anyone feel it might impact the decision by Portuguese to restrict access from UK and the plans for a "fan bubble, in, out same day and fuck you having any fun"?
Just seems the situation will change again but could go either way but the UK situation might be factor here.....people calling for local lockdowns.
Fuck, I really miss days when we just discussed what pubs to meet up to get pissed in for a final! This is not football.
All interesting points and I get why the Portuguese people wouldn't be happy about this game taking place there when they've been subject to a protracted lockdown that's been as strict as ours in many ways. Add in the discontent amongst their domestic fans and the incident with the Sporting Lisbon fans the other night and it is indeed a difficult sell. However, this should've all been communicated to us fans during the discussions around holding the game there and it should've been clearly spelt out before any official announcement (or at least at the time of the announcement at the absolute latest) that if the game is to be held in Porto that all fans travelling in for the game will have to do so on official day trips and they'd have to stay in secure bubbles for the duration of their stay. Yet none of that has been mentioned in any of the numerous leaks to the press this week before the official announcement yesterday.You touch on an interesting point about the treatment of locals. Not everyone in Portugal is happy that they are hosting the game, not least their own football fans who have had altercations with police. At a time when Portuguese fans are being told that they can only have 10% capacity in the grounds, their government will have a very hard time justifying an exception that allows 12,000 people to travel from another country, swan around on the piss for a few days and go to a game. They are elected officials after all.
The announcement last night of the bubble system was to assuage Portuguese voters. Even if Portugal is open for tourism that weekend, stadium restrictions of 10% would still apply to domestic football. The bubble system is about letting so many people into the ground as an exception to the 10% rule and not impacted by general tourism. I therefore fancy that UEFA's mob who don't have to quarantine will make up the ordinary 10%, meaning that capacity on the night will be somewhere around 17,000.
Yes, completely agree, the communication has been shocking and many fans have been fucked over.All interesting points and I get why the Portuguese people wouldn't be happy about this game taking place there when they've been subject to a protracted lockdown that's been as strict as ours in many ways. Add in the discontent amongst their domestic fans and the incident with the Sporting Lisbon fans the other night and it is indeed a difficult sell. However, this should've all been communicated to us fans during the discussions around holding the game there and it should've been clearly spelt out before any official announcement (or at least at the time of the announcement at the absolute latest) that if the game is to be held in Porto the all fans travelling in for the game will have to do so on official day trips and they'd have to stay in secure bubbles for the duration of their stay. Yet none of that has been mentioned in any of the numerous leaks to the press this week before the official announcement yesterday.