Football fans have welcomed the move by the Football Association of Zambia (FAZ) to allow spectators to the stadia following the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions by the Ministry of Health.
A football fan, Chawezi Katwizi said this move has been long overdue considering that the virus has come to stay.
Katwizi said this move means the resurrection of busy weekends for sports fans.
There will be no more boring weekends for us, as we will be busy watching our favourite teams play,
he said.
He said clubs are beneficiaries of this announcement because they will earn money through gate taking as fans enter the stadia during games.
Clubs will start generating revenue which helps with their efficient running,
he said.
Meanwhile, a Lusaka based football analyst Puncherelo Chama said the opening of the stadia must be embraced by clubs through the improvement on marketing for the purpose of attracting more fans.
Chama said prior to the closure of the stadia in 2020 due to the COVID-19 outbreak, most clubs already had poor supporter turn out during their games.
He added that he wonders how it will be now with all the economic problems that came with the pandemic.
A number of clubs had suffered from poor attendance of fans, and now I wonder how it will be because COVID-19 wrecked most peoples’ economic standing,
he said.
The analyst said he hopes to see a more positive turn out of fans as this would be good for the clubs’ revenue generation.
The Ministry of Health announced the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions on Friday, September 30, 2021 saying that Zambia has been significantly recording a reduction in the number of infections.