Manchester United made the announcement in this official blog post.
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In the post, Manchester United said that team officials made the decision to ban fans from taking laptops and tablets to games in reaction to “the latest security intelligence.”
“These actions are designed to ensure the continued safety and security of all spectators,” the club said.
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The maximum “permitted” device size is 150x100mm, or 5.9×3.9 inches. That means that even smallish tablets like the iPad Air, Kindle Fire, and Google Nexus slates would be subject to the ban.
What Manchester United may not have realized is that, because of their device size restrictions, they might have also unknowingly banned some smartphones from their arena as well. Smartphones that could violate Man U’s device size rules include the Nokia Lumia 1520, Asus FonePad 7, Galaxy Note 3, Galaxy Note 2, Galaxy Note 4, HTC One Max, Huawei MediaPad X1, Acer Iconia Tab 7, and the Huawei Ascend Mate 2.
Other phones that might be brushing up against Manchester United’s size requirements include the OnePlus One, Gionee Elife S5.5, and the LG G3. Phones that are 5.5 inches high not counting the bezel include the LG G Pro 2, Galaxy Mega, and the Sony Xperia Z Ultra, Be sure to keep all of this in mind if you plan to attend Man U games at Old Trafford and you own one of these phones.
However, we can’t say for certain whether these devices will be banned for sure, because there are some that exceed 5.9 inches in height (counting the display and the bezel, but may come in under 3.9 inches in width. So how would stadium officials rule in cases like that? At this point, it’s uncertain. We also don’t know whether they’re measuring height in a straight line, or diagonally.
We reached out to the English Premier League, as well as UEFA, which is the body that governs European soccer, for more information. We also want to find out whether other teams are planning to adopt similar security measures for their own stadiums.
If and when we obtain more information about this, we’ll update this article accordingly. Either way, people planning to attend Manchester United’s home games won’t have to wait long to find out how the team’s security staff will approach phablets, because the season starts Saturday, August 16.
