The Portuguese League will do a pilot test with the public this Saturday

The duel between Santa Clara and Gil Vicente, of the first Portuguese division, will be held next Saturday with the presence of up to a thousand people in the stands, a “pilot match” with which the Portuguese League wants to test the return of the public to the stadiums.

The competition confirmed today in a statement the presence of the public in the São Miguel stadium, in the Azores archipelago, in a match that “will assume an experimental character and aims to recover the educational and dissemination role that professional football, due to its notoriety, can and wants to play”.

The Regional Directorate of Health of Azores approved the presence of the public in the game this Saturday, with a maximum limit of 10% of capacity total sports complex (thousand people).

It will be the first time that a soccer match has been held with an audience in Portugal since March, when competitions were halted due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

In Portugal, the Directorate General of Health (DGS) it still prohibits the presence of the public in sports stadiums.

However, in the Azores, which is an autonomous region, regulation falls to the Regional Health Directorate, which two weeks ago authorized the presence of the public in these areas, up to 10% of their capacity, with a mask and with a distance between the spectators.

The president of the League, Pedro Proença, had already indicated previously that the clubs began to show “frustration” by the prohibition of public in the stands.

“The clubs are disappointed because there is no open spirit from the Government and the General Health Directorate so that football is not discriminated against,” he said in statements to the press last week.