July 30 – The English Premier League is calling on all its 20 clubs to trial Covid-19 vaccine passports ahead of possible government-mandated guidelines from October 1.
Authorities are considering the use of Covid passes for large-scale events and the Premier League wants to ensure crowd attendances run as smoothly as possible if any measures are brought in. It would mean supporters attending matches must prove they have been fully vaccinated.
Officials have taken note of the chaos at Wembley for the Euro 2020 final, when hundreds of supporters evaded Covid checks.
Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea have already confirmed they will trial the use of Covid passes for their forthcoming friendly games – Chelsea vs Spurs on August 4 and Spurs vsArsenal on August 8 – although they will also allow negative results from lateral flow devices.
Last week, British vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi said a Covid passports would mean fans “needing to show that they are fully vaccinated and proof of a negative test will not be sufficient”.
Chelsea say they will check fans’ covid status at the “point of entry” and are confident that procedures will be in place to account for large groups of fans arriving shortly before kick-off.
But there is an acceptance from some clubs that it might not be possible to check all fans tickets once stadiums are at full capacity.
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