Can Contactless Stadiums Help Football Transition out of Lockdown?

Article from Lee Jasper, Head of Products and Solutions at Johnson Controls UK & Ireland.

The Premier League is set to return to our screens on September 12th, with the Champions League following suit a few weeks later. Football fans across the globe are primed and ready to return to the terraces. But as was the case in the closing matches of the last tournaments, matches for the early stages of the competition will be missing a fundamental component – the crowd.

The German Bundesliga has already announced its intentions to welcome fans back for the September season, but this year’s Premier League will begin behind closed doors. Rising infection rates meant that previous plans to welcome back spectators in August had to be abandoned, and a return to stadiums is hoped-for from October 1st. But for this to come to fruition, facilities managers at stadia nationwide must demonstrate how they can facilitate games on a socially-distanced basis.

To this end, the stadia themselves could play a fundamental role in keeping fans, players and staff safe. The newest stadiums are already able to integrate with new systems to enable the rise of contactless facilities. But regular stadiums will also have to take measures to become ‘smarter.’ Limiting a potential spread of the virus within a stadium will involve a reliance on technology as an additional layer of protection to minimise the need for physical contact.

We’ve already seen instances of ‘contactless buildings’ achieved as office spaces reopened last month, but can ‘contactless stadiums’ help football transition out of lockdown?

Excerpt taken from Football & Stadium Management Magazine - October 2020