Nicola Sturgeon has outlined the key things she hopes to learn from this week's BT Murrayfield test event, while dismissing any suggestion rugby has been prioritised over football events.
Celtic were hoping for some fans to be allowed into Parkhead for Sunday's match against Motherwell, however this request was turned down by the Scottish Government.
As a result frustrations were expressed that rugby had been allowed to hold such an event before football fans were allowed back.
However Sturgeon said the virus "doesn't care about the shape of the ball" and it's more about making sure any lessons from tomorrow's test event at Murrayfield are learned before the next time.
She said: “But let me just be clear what we are doing here with these trial events with spectators back in stadiums. We are not trialing how it works with rugby versus football. I’ll let you into a wee secret here, the virus doesn’t care about the shape of the ball at these events.
“What we are testing is how you can operate within a stadium with spectators and maintaining and complying with all the physical distancing and other hygiene rules.
“So the learning from rugby will apply to football because it’s not specific to rugby versus football. The virus really doesn’t care what sport it is. It just cares about having to people to transmit from one to the other.
“The test event that will go ahead tomorrow night at Murrayfield with rugby will allow us to learn and to apply those lessons across different sports.
“Hopefully in the not too distant future we’ll be able to move into having, albeit limited numbers of spectators in stadiums for a whole variety of different sports not on a test or pilot basis but on a more general basis."
The First Minister added: “I would ask spectators and fans, whether it’s football or rugby, to bear with us just now. We’re trying to find the safest ways of bringing as much normality back as possible.
“It’s not about preferring rugby over football, football over rugby or any sport over any other sport. It’s just about trying to keep people as safe as possible as we try to get life back to as much normality as possible.”
