The Football Premier League is now up and running in England and so we wanted to look at the Covid information being offered by the clubs to fans and supporters visiting their grounds. This may be of particular interest to those away fans visiting other clubs as, from the information we have uncovered, the information is at best informative and at worst, completely missing! With the breaking news that the government is scrapping the vaccine passport in England (for the time being at least) we were still concenred about the level of preparedness of Premier League teams.

Most of the websites we looked at state that they are awaiting the Football Association’s update on Covid and coronavirus procedures that may (or may not) come into force on the 1 October 2021. As a result, we will be updating our verdict on the communication of the individual clubs to those fans wishing to visit. This may or may not be affected by the UK Government's announcement on 12 September 2021.

It should also be noted that the clubs take a very “England” centric view on the information they are providing and NOT considering variations between the available evidence from NHS Scotland (which has its own Covid pass system) or even fans visiting from Europe.

Many of the sites mention the need for the use of facemasks in enclosed area. So, we haven’t looked as this in particular as an area of concern. However, we did want to know was whether a fan would be mandated to display the NHS Pass app and other evidence that would prove they had received 2 vaccine jabs or had evidence of a lateral flow test. In addition, we looked at whether they referenced any other form of evidence.

The main reason for looking into this matter is that mobile phones and their respective apps are not always available.  The Euros final at Wembley was a chaotic event in itself but there were a number of reports of ticket holders, whose phones had “died” and hence could not prove their vaccine status. There have also been cases where individuals have received one vaccine in England and a second in Scotland. As the NHS systems do not talk to each other there are some individuals that cannot provide an all-encompassing vaccine status.

We looked at various points that we felt fans would want to know when visiting the stadium. We wanted to know if protocols fully mandated and enforced or if advices provided was simply encouraged. How would individuals be able to prove their vaccine status? Where the NHS app was mentioned we wanted to know if other forms of proof would be allowed including the "Blue Card", a print out of the NHS confirmation or even the EU or Scottish equivalent. We also looked at whether a photo ID would be needed too to check the information as we know that vaccine proof can be easily "spoofed" . 

We will be updating this table shortly with links to individual clubs and where you can find out further information. Our research has found that 10 of the most highly funded clubs in the country have little or no clear guidance on what fans should be expecting when they arrive at their stadium. More guidance may be forthcoming from the Football Association but surely there was an opportunity for clubs to provide a clear explanation to fans and not just rely on some future requirements from the FA. The Delta variant is continuing to have an effect on increasing Covid cases and “super-spreader” events such as football matches should have much clearer guidelines until a unified approach can be adopted. We just hope that clubs can provide a better level of information to their own fans, away supporters and those visiting from outside England.