Faster, Higher, Stronger

Tokyo 2020: nothing to cheer about an Olympic Games with no fans

Tokyo 2020 organisers have banned foreign fans and will not decide on Japanese fans attending until as late as June

Football and other sports have ploughed on with seasons in empty stadiums but one-off Olympics feels different

3-MIN READ3-MIN

Social distancing signs are pictured on grandstand seats during a ceremony on the second day of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games torch relay at Shinobugaoka Stadium in Fukushima on March 26, 2021. Photo: AFP

Formerly of the South China Morning Post, Jonathan White has written about sport from China for nearly 15 years, and covered the Beijing 2008 Olympics, the Fifa World Cup in Brazil in 2014 and the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.

Published: 8:00am, 18 May 2021Updated: 8:00am, 18 May 2021

“Football without the fans is nothing” is the message on the statue of legendary manager Jock Stein at Celtic Park.

It’s a sentiment that football fans have got behind in recent years as consumerism has gripped the game with hand-painted banners bearing the message appearing at Liverpool’s Anfield, Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium and Leicester City’s King Power Stadium among clubs in the English Premier League.

It’s a message that translates internationally, too. “Fussball ohne fans ist nichts!” as the German fans had it in the Bundesliga game between Borussia Monchengladbach and Wolfsburg last June.

That banner was draped over a stand that was filled with cardboard cut-outs of fans at Borussia Park, with the Covid-19 pandemic preventing them from attending.

Aside from becoming the battle cry against consumerism, the pandemic has given Stein’s sentiment a more literal meaning in these months of empty stadiums.