OGC Nice’s opening match of the Ligue 1 Uber Eats season, on Sunday 23 August at 17:00 CET, against Lens will be played behind closed doors, Jean-Pierre Rivère announced on Wednesday.

"We made the difficult decision today to deprive ourselves of our fans for our first game. There are two main reasons for this decision," explained Le Gym chairman. "On the one hand, we are facing a health problem. We are in a very touristic region, and there is an acceleration in the spread of COVID-19. This is increasing day by day. We cannot ignore it. At a time when everyone is being asked to take more precautions, we are making the responsible choice to play behind closed doors. This position does not, of course, pre-empt what will happen next. The caution we show today may also help secure a safer future. And in any case, we hope that we will soon be able to welcome our supporters to the Allianz Riviera. The next home match against Paris SG will not be until 20 September. We'll assess how the situation evolves between now and then and make a decision in September, depending on how things develop.

"Our message today is also addressed to our season-ticket holders. There are many of them, many more than the 4,000 that we could allow into the stadium against Lens (a maximum 5,000 people had been authorized at the stadium, and after deducting the organisational staff, only 4,000 spectators could attend). We had initially tried to create a selection process for who could go to the match and who would miss out, to satisfy at least some of them. But today we're taking it upon ourselves to reverse that decision. We have a slogan, "My Gym My Family" and we believe that we should not exclude anyone from our family. Of course we are sorry that it has come to this point, we are aware that it will lead to some people being upset. It is even harder after months and months without football. But both in terms of health and also for our supporters, we are making the responsible decision. Health and safety is the most important thing. It's also a message that we send out and that reminds us that we all have to be careful. We hope that this sensible decision will not dampen the enthusiasm of our fans and our season-ticket holders. On the contrary, we hope it will show them that we care."

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