21,000 fans watch FA Cup final at Wembley in latest pilot sports event

Over 20,000 spectators will watch Saturday evening's FA Cup final between Chelsea and Leicester City at Wembley Stadium.

English football's showpiece occasion is the latest of a series of Government pilot events to return fans to sporting events as the United Kingdom continues to follow its roadmap out of lockdown.

The Duke of Cambridge will be one of 21,000 in attendance at the national stadium, including 6,250 supporters of each team.

The remainder of the crowd will consist of residents from the Brent area that surrounds Wembley, invited key workers and Football Association guests.

Everyone attending was required to return a negative lateral flow Covid-19 test before travelling to the stadium. Proof of this had to be provided by email or text message to gain entry to Wembley.

The final will see Wembley at just under a quarter of its 90,000-capacity despite mounting fears that the Indian Covid variant could push back the planned exit from restrictions in England on June 21.

Government scientists warned on Friday night that the new strain is 'realistically' 50 per cent more infectious than the Kent strain.

They said that if the Indian strain took hold, there could be 10,000 more people hospitalised per day by the Autumn and the possibility of 1,000 deaths per day by summer.

Scientists believe vaccines are less effective against the variant and the rapid spread of the virus among younger people could out-pace the successful programme of vaccination across the UK.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson pledged to 'throw everything we have at this task' and will send the Army into the worst variant hotspots to hand out tests in an effort to slow the spread.

That news did little to dampen the enthusiasm of those lucky supporters able to watch their team in the Cup final at Wembley.

The two clubs allocated the tickets to season ticket holders based on the number of away matches they had attended in the past.

It is the largest crowd seen at a pilot event to date. 8,000 fans attended the Carabao Cup final between Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City at Wembley last month.

The FA Cup semi-final between Leicester and Southampton saw 4,000 inside Wembley.

The recent World Snooker Championship at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield also saw spectators at every session over the course of 17 days. There was a sell-out crowd for the two sessions of the final on May 3, with 980 mask-wearing fans inside the arena.

With the latest easing of restrictions set for Monday, there will also be limited numbers of home fans at the remaining Premier League fixtures in the next fortnight and also the EFL Play-offs.

It came as thousands of Rangers fans defied Covid rules to greet their team at Ibrox as they received the Scottish Premiership trophy following their match against Aberdeen.

Both the club and the Scottish Government urged fans to keep away but these requests were ignored.

The celebrations come a day after Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon announced that Glasgow would be remaining in the highest restrictions bracket along with Moray due to concerns from the Indian coronavirus variant.

Positive cases in the Glasgow area rose up to 3.5 per cent on Friday, with research suggesting the Indian strain of the virus is contributing to these spike in cases. The rest of Scotland will be moving to level 2 from May 17.