The Tokyo Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games announced late Friday evening that all Olympic events scheduled to be held in Hokkaido will be staged without spectators, reversing a decision it had announced a short time earlier.
In Hokkaido, soccer matches are slated to be held at Sapporo Dome in the prefectural capital. According to the committee, as of early Friday evening, the committee and the Hokkaido prefectural government agreed to hold daytime matches "with spectators." The committee announced that spectators would be admitted to Sapporo Dome for the soccer matches.
Later the same evening, however, Hokkaido informed the committee of its decision that all Olympic events slated for Hokkaido should be held without spectators, because it would be difficult to block the flow of travelers between Hokkaido and Tokyo, where a state of emergency to curb the spread of infections with the new coronavirus is to be put in place again -- this time from July 12 through Aug. 22. The committee said it approved Hokkaido's decision.
Hokkaido Gov. Naomichi Suzuki said at an emergency press conference late Friday evening, "It would be difficult to ask people from Tokyo and its three neighboring prefectures [Saitama, Chiba, and Kanagawa] to refrain from coming to Hokkaido [for the events]."
Infections have been on the increase in the three prefectures, which are subject to emergency-level priority measures.
Suzuki then revealed that he had requested the committee to hold the soccer matches in Hokkaido with no spectators.
Hokkaido had called on the committee to take uniform nationwide measures on handling spectators for the Games.
A decision was made late Thursday that the events to be held in Tokyo and its three neighboring prefectures would be staged without spectators, but the organizing committee announced Friday afternoon that soccer matches elsewhere would be held with spectators, albeit with limits on attendance.
Hokkaido, upset with the committee's decision, then requested that it take measures to keep spectators from Tokyo and its three neighboring prefectures from coming to the matches in Hokkaido. Through negotiations, both sides concluded that it would be impossible to keep people from traveling to Hokkaido.
Out of the 750 sessions for which admission tickets have already been sold to the public, there are now only 29 for which spectators will actually be allowed in. As tickets already sold for some of those 29 sessions exceed the recently set attendance limits, the organizing committee will hold a new drawing, the results of which were set to be announced on Saturday. Games in the opening rounds of baseball and softball, to be held in Fukushima Prefecture, are among the events subject to the drawing.
Ticket holders who become unable to attend events due to official decisions to bar or limit spectators will receive refunds. Those whose tickets remain valid can also apply for refunds through the morning of July 20 if they no longer plan to attend.
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