Danish Superliga football club FC Midtjylland has invited fans to a ‘drive-in’ experience for matches at MCH Arena when the season eventually resumes.
The Danish football season is currently on hold due to the COVID-19 outbreak and there are plans to resume the campaign on May 17. With it appearing likely that matches will be played behind closed doors when the season resumes, FC Midtjylland has come up with an innovative way to ensure fans still feel part of the action.
The Herning-based club plans on making 2,000 spaces available in the stadium car park for when the season resumes, with big screens to be set up to showcase the action to fans. It is hoped that the initiative would allow up to 10,000 fans to tune into the match, which they could listen to via their car radio.
“In the coming time when we unfortunately have to run the Superliga without spectators, we are working hard to create the best possible experience,” Preben Rokkjær, marketing and supporter director for FC Midtjylland, said.
“We have a stated goal of creating the best stadium experience. It does not change with coronavirus – it just provides some other preconditions. We are in close dialogue with the police, Herning Municipality and MCH to create a safe framework and security for everyone.”
A camera will also be set up so the footage of the fans in their cars can be relayed on to the screens inside the stadium. Prizes will also be given to the ‘best-dressed’ car.
More details of the initiative will be released when the final plan for the resumption of the Superliga has been approved. The club will decide whether to open more parking spaces if the first match proves to be a success.
In other news, an app has been developed in Germany that would allow fans to ‘virtually’ cheer for their club while watching matches on television.
The MeinApplaus app will allow fans to press four buttons representing clapping, cheering, whistling and singing. The more fans press the buttons, the more prominent the sounds will become.
German newspaper Bild reports that clubs will then be able to relay the sounds through the loudspeakers in their stadia. Each club will have their own adapted chants as part of the initiative, which would require approval from the German Football League (DFL).
Creator Viktor Mraz told Bild: “My vision is to enable people to communicate their positive feelings directly – to make the emotions visible, audible and measurable. It was particularly challenging to process the actions of hundreds of thousands of people within a tenth of a second and digitally create a coherent soundscape from them.”
Image: FC Midtjylland
