Most of the leading European championships plan to complete the interrupted season due to coronavirus. At the same time, they will have to face one important problem - the lack of spectators in the stands. In England, they want to solve it with the help of modern technologies that will “fill” the stands with computer images of fans, and in Germany, viewers are preparing to replace them with huge photographs, as it was once done in Belarus.
Even if the authorities of individual countries allow matches and end tournaments before the fall, for safety reasons, spectators are unlikely to be allowed into the stadiums so that new foci of infection do not arise. So, the possible resumption of the German championship will definitely take place without spectators, since the country has a ban on mass events until August 31. According to media reports, the Bundesliga has developed a plan according to which, at best, about 300 people will be at the stadiums, including football players, coaches, attendants and television workers. In Spain, Italy and England, fans risk not getting into matches until 2021.
According to the president of the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), Alexander Cheferin, it is better to conduct matches without spectators and show them only on television than to refuse to play at all, as was done in the Netherlands and France, because the fans need the positive energy that football creates. However, meetings in empty stands will have their drawbacks. In addition to the fact that clubs will not receive income from the sale of tickets and paraphernalia, the quality of broadcasts will also suffer. The representative of the main sports submarine Sky Sports is sure of this.
“Even if the club does not sell all tickets for the Premier League match, if one of the stands looks especially empty, then the reaction of the audience is noticeably not so stormy. Even if the stadium is noisy, one empty grandstand already reduces the spectators' enjoyment of the game. When the stadium is completely empty, and there is complete silence, then this makes a very strange impression. If viewers match for match do not see people in the stands, do not hear the cries of fans and other sounds, there are serious concerns about how this will affect the viewing pleasure of the audience and their desire to watch football play behind closed doors, ”he quotes source words iNEWS.
However, according to Sky Sports, a way out can be found. The television channel plans to use during the broadcasts computer-generated images of the audience, which will be placed in the stands empty. This technology is easy to use for one fixed camera, but problems can arise on the scale of an entire stadium, which uses 24 points for shooting.
For broadcasters, the introduction of artificially created images by the viewer can be a challenge, a spokesman for Sky Sports admitted. It will be possible to alleviate the problem if you use a huge green canvas stretched over the stands, or limit yourself to just three cameras.
By the way, once in England they were replacing live fans with painted ones. In 1992, the northern tribune of Highbury Stadium, which was played by London's Arsenal, was hung with a banner featuring fans and even advertisements. The canvas had to be changed repeatedly, since the artists initially depicted only white men, having forgotten about women and national minorities.
While talk of introducing computer technology to “fill” the stands is only ongoing, outside of England they are trying to “revive” it in simpler ways. So, the Belarusian club Dynamo-Brest holds a charity event “We play for the world”, within the framework of which it places mannequins with fan attributes and photographs of fans who bought tickets for matches on the seats. Recently, Belarusian football has attracted attention from around the world, and thus Dynamo helps foreign fans to become a little closer to the team. Even the former Chelsea and Real Madrid player Michael Essien acquired his ticket and his own mannequin. The club will use part of the proceeds from the campaign to fight against coronavirus in Belarus.
Example with Dynamo intends to take the Mönchengladbach Borussia. The German club will post photographs of its fans in the stands of its stadium when the Bundesliga season resumes. Applications for such a virtual visit to the Borussia Park arena have already left more than eight thousand fans who had to pay € 19 for this opportunity. About two thousand photographs have already taken their places.