Crowd still a chance for Cats home game on Friday

THE door has been left open by the Victorian Government for a reduced capacity crowd for Geelong’s AFL clash with the Western Bulldogs.

On Monday this week, the AFL on Monday shifted the North Melbourne-Brisbane and Hawthorn-Essendon matches from Melbourne to Tasmania, where fans are allowed.

The Cats were given the option of taking their encounter with the Bulldogs this Friday night interstate, but rejected that offer.

Victorian health minister Martin Foley said he would continue to work with the AFL so the league had the “most amount of certainty”.

“I wouldn’t want to commit to (allowing some fans into the ground), when the public health advice is in we’ll share it as soon as we can,” Foley told reporters yesterday (Tuesday, June 15).

Geelong chief executive Brian Cook said he was “keeping his fingers and toes crossed” for fans to be allowed into GMHBA Stadium.

“I’m hoping for 50 per cent capacity – if we can get to that, we would get by,” he told SEN.

“It wouldn’t be marvellous, but it would be okay. I think it would be a regionally-based crowd and we would need to check IDs.

“It’s probably more unlikely than likely… I’m hoping that it happens because it means a lot to us to get a crowd here.

“If we don’t get a crowd here it will affect us somewhere between $500,000 and $800-to-$900,000.

“We can’t get anywhere that sort of compensation playing interstate, in fact the dollars that were thrown around were probably very low compared to that.”

Cats coach Chris Scott said he could not understand why a crowd would not be permitted when regional Victoria is in a different situation regarding COVID-19 than Melbourne.

“I don’t want to make a political statement here, but the regional areas are a long way away from the nearest COVID case in metropolitan Melbourne,” Scott told Fox Footy.

“It would be very disappointing if we can’t get some sort of advance on the current thinking at the moment with no crowds.”

Geelong’s decision to keep their game at GMHBA Stadium comes after they had to abide by strict protocols laid out for them by the South Australian government last week.

The Cats were kept away from the public and spent hours waiting around at Adelaide Oval pre-match, but overcame the hurdles to register a stirring win over fellow flag contenders Port Adelaide.

Scott confirmed Geelong players and staff are not allowed to travel to Melbourne under an agreed protocol with the Queensland Government through the AFL.

It will see the Cats allowed to fly to Queensland for their clash with the Brisbane in round 15.