Playing in silence

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The celebrations over a last-minute winner. The roar of the crowd as a red card is shown or a penalty appeal is turned down. All are intrinsic parts of the football experience, and all were put on hold this year.

Europe’s top five leagues were forced to stop matches in March, when France, Germany, England, Italy and Spain all implemented restrictions. Of those competitions, only France did not restart the 2019/20 season. The rest opted for crowdless stadiums, with games played behind closed doors and matches broadcast on television with artificial crowd noise.

Initially, it seems, fans were not wholly in favour of football’s return. In May, a YouGov poll of the general population found that 73% did not feel it would boost morale in the UK generally.

Social listening firm Synthesio, meanwhile, analysed what fans were saying online about football’s return before and during the reopening of the major leagues. Sentiment about the Premier League restarting was negative because of concerns ...