Rangers are still unsure how many fans will be allowed to attend their friendly with Arsenal on 17 July and may be concerned that a precedent has been set by an Edinburgh City Council decision.
The high-profile pre-season fixture was arranged as part of Rangers’ 150th anniversary year celebrations.
When the clash was announced in April, Gers director of commercial and marketing James Bisgrove said that the club hoped a ‘significant number’ of supporters would return to Ibrox to take it in from the stands [Rangers.co.uk].
However, significant restrictions on attendances are still in place and a final decision is yet to be made.
The Gunners are taking on Hibernian at Easter Road just a few days before the Ibrox clash and in a concerning development, the Hibees had a bid to allow 6000 supporters in rejected by Edinburgh City Council [Glasgow Live].
Instead, just 2000 fans will be in attendance in the capital.
2000 is approximately 10% of Easter Road’s capacity, so a similar decision at Ibrox would only see around 5000 fans permitted.
That would be hard to take for Bears given that 60,000 spectators are attending each of the Euro 2020 semi-finals in London this week, while Wimbledon’s main courts are operating at full capacity for the final days of the tournament.
Closer to home, 16,500 fans watched the British and Irish Lions take on Japan at Murrayfield last month.
Clearly, those events have greater significance than your average pre-season friendly, but fans haven’t been inside Ibrox since March 2020 and this glamour match has been in the diary for some time, so Rangers will be hoping for some leniency from the authorities.
Fans that do make it into the ground for the friendly will hope to see John Lundstram in action, but an EFL club expert has dropped a warning about the new arrival’s attitude.