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Wales Online
Wales Online
Sport
Cathy Owen

Welsh fans will not be allowed into Netherlands for Euro2020 knockout match

Welsh fans will not be allowed into the Netherlands for Euro 2020 knockout match - and discussions about fan zones are still continuing in Wales.

Wales Health Minister Eluned Morgan said she had talked to police in Amsterdam who had said that fans would not be welcome in the city.

Wales will play Denmark in the next round of the tournament after finishing second in their group. Wales' opponents confirmed.

Read more: Coronavirus infection rates, cases and deaths for all parts of Wales on Monday, June 21

Wales' last-16 fixture will be held at Amsterdam's Johan Cruyff Arena on Saturday, June 26. Kick-off will be at 5pm.

Holland is on the UK's amber list of countries, meaning that any travellers would have to self-isolate on return, while the UK and Denmark are not on the Netherlands safe country list either.

But Ms Morgan told the weekly coronavirus briefing that football fans were not being encouraged to travel to the European city. You can follow what else was said at the briefing here.

"We would encourage fans to stay here and watch the matches carefully," she said.

The minister also hinted that there could be more fan zones in Wales.

She said: "If local authorities come forward and ask us for the setting up of fan zones we will, as a Government, consider that and publish guidelines for how that could be done in a safe way.

"It is a finely balanced argument. We would rather people watched outdoors and if we could do that in a controlled setting it would be better than people going into each other's homes."

On Friday, the First Minister said large outdoor fanzones could be considered in Wales' towns and cities. Read what he had to say on the subject here.

There have been some limited fanzones set up for Wales' group games in places such as Depot in Cardiff. But the images from many places showed that - particularly following a goal - there were examples of very little social distancing as fans understandably celebrated.

There have also been concern raised about the scenes in London over the weekend when Scottish fans descended on the capital for the game against England.

(Daily Mirror)

Ms Morgan told the briefing that she watched the huge crowds of football fans with "horror".

In answer to a second question on fan zones, Ms Morgan said: "We are very keen for football fans to watch the games in a safe environment. I watched the scenes from London of footballs fans mixing in horror.

"We want to avoid that if we can and that is why we will consider proposals that come forward from local authorities for fan zones that can be safely regulated.

"If you can watch the match outside, that is what our preference would be."

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