Until recently, the idea was to let up to 4,000 people into the World Cup matches.

But after harsh criticism, including from the European Players' Union, the International Handball Federation (IHF) reconsidered the decision.

Instead, together with Egyptian authorities, it was decided to completely stop spectators due to the corona pandemic.

But Danish Ekstra Bladet's pictures from Wednesday's premiere match Egypt-Chile show something else

The arena in Cairo, which has a capacity of 17,000 spectators, was far from empty.

Around 100 of the people in the stands were specially invited, official guests.

But according to the newspaper, there were another up to 1,000 spectators along the two short pages.

The newspaper writes that the people were at a proper distance from the players, and that some kind of social distancing was established.

But the news does not reasonably reduce the already hard pressure on the IHF's Egyptian chairman Hassan Moustafa.

In addition to the tours around the audience, the pandemic has hit the imagined World Cup party hard in other ways as well.

The day before Wednesday's premiere, for example, two countries, the United States and Sweden's supposed premier opponents Czech Republic, withdrew from the tournament due to widespread infection in each team.

Countries such as Norway and Denmark have also expressed concern about how safe the supposed "bubbles" actually are, and among other things have complained that the teams are too close to each other at meals.

Sweden starts the World Cup against Northern Macedonia, which replaced the Czech Republic, tonight.

CLIP: Grahn: Low expectations for Sweden in the World Cup (January 13, 2021)

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Magnus Grahn Photo: Bildbyrån / SVT