Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte announced a three-week partial lockdown, with one of the measures being that sports matches must be played in empty stadiums.
Caretaker Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte announced a three-week partial lockdown in response to a recent surge of COVID-19 cases in the Netherlands. On Thursday, the Netherlands’ public health institute recorded 16,364 new positive tests in 24 hours—the country’s highest number throughout the whole pandemic. In an Associated Press report, Rutte said the Dutch government wants to “deliver a hard blow to the virus.” Beginning Saturday, the lockdown will make bars, restaurants and supermarkets close at 8 p.m. and stores selling non-essential items to close at 6 p.m. Also, sports stadiums will have to be empty during upcoming matches. “Tonight we have a very unpleasant message with very unpleasant and far-reaching decisions,” Rutte said in the AP report. The Dutch soccer federation and two professional leagues released a statement saying they felt “great dismay” at the lockdown. They stressed that soccer stadiums have strict COVID measures in place and that they are not a major infection source. “This looks like policy poverty,” the organizations said, saying government officials “no longer know what to do.” The AP reported that as Rutte was making the announcement, The Hague said they arrested nearby protestors for setting off fireworks.
