Another week, another government shambles in relation to sport and in particular fans attending events.
We’ve already seen the SFA/SPFL Joint Response Group’s statement which, two weeks from implementation, criticises the vaccination certificate scheme that has already been dropped by Westminster, siting a lack of clarity as the principle reason for their concerns.
What doesn’t help is when the head of Scotland’s clinical covid response gives an interview in which he doesn’t know how the plan is going to work or how businesses and clubs are supposed to check vaccination passports.
Speaking on Radio Clyde, Jason Leitch has, at least given the likes of Rangers a slightly more positive update in that it doesn’t look like every fan in Ibrox will have to be checked and that spot checks could be the way ahead when asked if this was a possibility, he said:
“I do and there are scientific ways of working out what that might look like.
“You probably wouldn’t check two of 60,000, but you might check a percentage of 60,000. You don’t need to check all 60,000.
“If you’ve got a 200 person venue and it’s a relatively slow entry then you can probably manage that.
“But the football authorities are right.
“These massive events like rugby at Murrayfield or football at one of our big stadia – it may be that we can use probability and science to get us to a point where we need to know ‘X-number’ or ‘X-percentage’ of the big number.
“That will give us an idea of how many are actually being vaccinated.
“Remember this is for those individuals. It’s to keep them safe.
“I would expect people to do that in an altruistic way to look after themselves and those around them by being vaccinated”.
Again though, the government should already know who is and isn’t vaccinated and they should also know that this doesn’t have any effect on how the virus is spread. That they are using businesses to blackmail people into getting the vaccination doesn’t sit right with me, restricting a persons ability to live a “normal” life isn’t the sort of society I want to live in – everyone should, by now, know that they are only putting their own health at risk if they decide not to get vaccinated but again, it should be a choice.
It’s totally different asking someone to provide evidence of a negative lateral flow test, if the government wanted to minimise the risk of spread at big events then that would probably be their best option and also doesn’t impact on people’s choices.
It is, as always, a shambles. The clubs don’t know what is going on, the SFA/SPFL don’t know what is going on, the government’s clinical director doesn’t know what is going on which means that those at the end of the information queue – the fans – are being kept in the dark about what they will have to do before being allowed to watch their team.
An absolute farce.