Glasgow Green is to be home to a Euro 2021 fan zone next month during the football championships.

Thousands of people will be able to gain entry to the site everyday for a month even though Glasgow, if all goes according to plan, will only be out of level three lockdown a couple of weeks earlier.

Tickets sold out for the event, mysteriously as soon as the lines were open, so there must be an appetite for it among many people.

The people who live in the area, however must be sickened, and many have expressed their anger and distaste at the move.

The fan zone will be a strict covid safe environment with people kept metres apart and all seated.

In other words it will be a sterile environment, a sterile atmosphere.

International football tournaments are supposed to bring people together. People from different countries, different cultures mixing and meshing and each goes away with a better understanding of the other than they had beforehand.

Scotland, Croatia and the Czech Republic are the three countries playing at Hampden in June.

There will be no Czech or Croatian fans there at Glasgow Green unless they are already resident in Glasgow.

Tickets are free but there will surely be ways of parting people from their cash once they are safely inside.

There will undoubtedly be Uefa merchandise, and as is the norm at these events if there is alcohol on sale it will be that of one of the sponsors.

The Uefa fan zone website states: “A small amount of personal food will be allowed into Glasgow Green and for personal consumption only. There are food and beverage units located throughout Glasgow Green for purchase.”

Uefa will dictate what you drink and how much you pay for it.

The website also states “A festival atmosphere will be created”.

Who is creating this festival atmosphere?

Anyone who attends football matches will tell you that it is the fans who create the atmosphere.

That applies at all levels from Maryhill Juniors and Manchester United.

It cannot be created by design or by a committee.

Too often fans are herded, put into ‘fan zones’ told what they can and cannot drink, what merchandise they can buy, with strict licensing rules backed up by local enforcement.

There is an opportunity for Glasgow, if we are to have fan zones at these type of events in the future to do it ourselves.

After the year small business has had it will be galling for owners to see a closed off venue with a captive audience of 6000 people for a Uefa led corporate event.

If there is to be any opportunity for money changing hands inside, then it should be local businesses who provide the goods and services.

If this is to be held in a Glasgow park then a consortium of local pubs, cafes and restaurants can do the food.

local crafters can make souvenirs and other businesses can be allowed to promote their goods and services.

These businesses will be committed to Glasgow for far longer then the Uefa juggernaut that rolls into town, hoovers up as much cash as it can then rolls out and on to the next town chasing the dollar.

Just like football at certain levels is being taken away from the people so are our public spaces.

Glasgow Green, like other parks has been busy throughout the lockdown as people are forced to stay local and they have used it to take exercise and just to get outside especially for the majority in Glasgow with no garden.

So, for them to have a large section of the park deemed out of bounds by a remote organisation like Uefa will be less than pleasing.

It is a thoroughly depressing sight to walk or cycle along a path in the park to then come up against a ten-foot high fence.

Just now Glasgow is at risk of losing many of its community facilities due to either Glasgow Life losing income in the pandemic or good old-fashioned neglect.

Some are in our parks. Like tennis and bowling facilities. Many have been derelict for years and left to rot and people can see others are at risk of going the same way.

Our parks and public spaces belong to the people of Glasgow.

They do not belong to the council. They do not belong to Glasgow Life. They do not belong to DF concerts and they certainly do not belong to Uefa.