From Zoom 'fan walls' to piped-in crowd songs – Premier League consider innovations to replace absent fans

The Premier League may have a different look when it resumes next week but it could be aiming to make the same noise. Piped-in crowd songs might be among the innovations used to compensate for the lack of fans in grounds as the league tries to improve the experience for supporters at home. There could also be 'fan walls' on big screens , composed of supporters on Zoom calls, allowing them to react to events and for both players and television viewers to see them. Most grounds currently have a couple of big screens but more may be erected, partly so footballers can see supporters celebrating goals or victories. The English top flight and its clubs are considering a variety of ways to generate more atmosphere and give more of a feel to games played with thousands of empty seats. Broadcaster Sky Sports is working with EA Sports, the company behind the popular Fifa games, to create crowd noises which television viewers would get the option of hearing. They could also choose the sound within the stadium, enabling them to hear managers and players who are usually drowned out by thousands of spectators. Pre-recorded songs by fans could be used to mark goals and other landmarks like substitutions, VAR appeals or the final whistle when the ball is not in play. Some German Bundesliga clubs have used giant banners at the bottom of stands, meaning television viewers do not see thousands of empty seats behind the pitch. Premier League clubs should follow suit, though some of those banners could be advertising for club sponsors. Aston Villa appealed on Friday for fans to send in their flags or banners which could be used at Villa Park, while Wolves announced they would cover part of the Jack Hayward Stand at Molineux with a large flag formed of a mosaic of supporters’ faces. Eight clubs, including Brighton & Hove Albion and Newcastle United, are reportedly in talks with a company to provide them with cardboard cutouts of thousands of fans. Borussia Monchengladbach are among the German clubs who have used them to give the impression the ground was full – though when that approach was tried at an NRL game in Sydney, one supporter instead put up an image of UK prime minister Boris Johnson's lockdown-breaching advisor Dominic Cummings. Meanwhile, ballboys may suddenly look older if club staff, who have already been tested for coronavirus, are used in place of the usual children to retrieve stray shots and clearances. Clubs have already got accustomed to using disinfected balls during training and now the sight of staff disinfecting them during games could become more common. And as in Germany, substitutes are likely to be spaced out in stands, to observe social distancing, rather than all being sat in the dugouts behind managers. Spaced-out press boxes are also likely to accommodate those members of the media who are permitted to attend. To limit contact between broadcasters and footballers, there may be some unmanned cameras in fixed positions in grounds, while pre-match interviews could be recorded by players on their phones and post-match press conferences might be conducted via zoom. The Premier League had already abandoned its usual pre-match handshakes before it halted in March and they will not be returning in the restart.

From Zoom 'fan walls' to piped-in crowd songs – Premier League consider innovations to replace absent fans

The English top flight are considering a variety of ways to generate more atmosphere and give more of a feel to games played in empty stadiums