By William Lloyd: In great news, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson says that fans will be permitted to return to live sporting events at a maximum 100% capacity beginning on July 19th without the need for COVID certification of proof of vaccinations.
Besides sporting events like boxing, this also includes concerts and nightclubs in the UK.
One fight in the near term that will benefit from lifting the restrictions in the September 25th clash between Anthony Joshua and Oleksandr Usyk, which will be taking place at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in North London, England.
The stadium has a seating capacity of 62,850, and Joshua’s fight against WBO mandatory Usyk (18-0, 13 KOs) is expected to sell out the stadium at maximum capacity.
That’s not to say that there won’t be risk involved for fans that choose to go mask-less in public for sporting events in the UK. With the COVID variant a massive problem, it’s obviously a risk to bring bask sporting events at full capacity in the UK.
It’ll be interesting to see how long fans will be allowed to return to live sporting events in 100% numbers before the UK government changes things back after seeing a spike in cases.
It’ll depend, of course, on the number of fans that are willing to get vaccinated and whether the variant can infect vaccinated people.
While fans are celebrating now, they may be down in the dumps or if Boris Johnson clamps down on sporting events once he sees a huge spike in the number of cases of infected people.
One has to have mixed emotions about the news of the restrictions being eased because, ultimately, it could lead to more deaths.
This problem isn’t going to go away if people are nonchalant about the risks, which could keep this virus around for a long time.
As long as the numbers of infections don’t return to where they were previously, fans now have a chance to see Joshua vs. Tyson Fury back home in the UK in December, as long as both guys win their next fights.
Last week, fury’s promoter Bob Arum said that he’s interested in staging the Joshua fight at Wembley Stadium in the fall.
However, Eddie Hearn may choose to get a massive site deal for the fighters from the Middle East like he’d done recently when he set up a deal to stage the Joshua-Fury fight in Saudi Arabia.
Hearn will likely choose to get as much money as possible for the Joshua-Fury fight, which means the chances of the contest taking place in the UK are quite low.