Crowd Of 7,000 Fans Allowed Into Geelong-Bulldogs Match

A crowd of 7,000 fans will be allowed into Geelong's GMHBA Stadium on Friday night for the blockbuster clash with the Western Bulldogs. 

Recent Victorian Government announcements for restrictions to ease this Friday will allow a certain number of fans to watch their team.

Seating is only available to members of either club who reside in neighbouring suburbs of the venue.

The easing of restrictions from acting premier James Merlino comes after the AFL reshuffled two Melbourne-based matches to Tasmania for round 14. 

Brett Sutton, Victoria's chief health officer is hopeful of games returning to metropolitan Melbourne "as soon as possible".

"I don't want it deferred longer than it needs to be, but I don't want people in crowds when we have this particular variant spreading." Sutton said.

"People who haven't had face-to-face contact, people who haven't been to a restaurant together, we are talking about people who have maybe passed each other in a shared corridor, walk through the same space at different times with the virus just sitting around airborne.

"That is the challenge, I don't want that to be spread through a super-spreader event. We need to see how this weekend goes."

Geelong were not yet offered a plan by the league to move to an interstate venue, but club chief executive Brian Cook said they were facing a potential loss of nearly $1 million if the game was not played at home. 

Tickets for the match will go on sale Thursday, members from both clubs have been asked to understand that the crowd limit will not provide guaranteed seating.

The Wednesday announcement also revealed the return of community sport, AFL Victoria are working through the process of allowing postponed matches to continue without any crowds at local venues.

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