WELLINGTON - New Zealand Rugby (NZR) said on Monday fans will be allowed into stadiums to watch the opening weekend of its domestic rugby union competition after the country lifted virtually all coronavirus restrictions.
Super Rugby Aotearoa, which involves New Zealand's five Super teams, is the first professional rugby union competition to resume after governments imposed restrictions to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus.
"We're incredibly proud, and grateful, to be the first professional sports competition in the world to be in a position to have our teams play in front of their fans again," NZR Chief Executive Mark Robinson said in a statement.
There would be no restrictions on the size of crowds for the first weekend of matches at Otago Regional Stadium in Dunedin on Saturday and at Eden Park in Auckland on Sunday, NZR added.
%%%twitter https://twitter.com/hashtag/SuperRugby?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#SuperRugbyAotearoa from round 1!
READ 👉🏽 https://t.co/UGFa1bSs2F pic.twitter.com/vcSV7nHUej
— Super Rugby (@SuperRugbyNZ)
“With the return of community sport, we wanted to give our many fans involved in Saturday sport time to finish up their games, get ready to head out, and then across town to our venues. We’re excited to be able to provide some daytime Sunday rugby in 2020.
“With the change to Level 1 our teams can now prepare normally for matches, rather than asking them to fly in and out on match day.”