Vaccine Passports Pass And Will Be Needed At Celtic Park From 1 October.

Well, as expected vaccine passports have cleared the legislative hurdle and they will be required, in law, for attendance at Celtic Park from 1 October.

I see some people are still blaming the club for this, and saying they will hold the club responsible if it tries to implement this.

Those people need to have a lie down.

This is now the law. Implementation will happen.

The club has no choice. Failure to take “all reasonable measures” to ensure compliance with the law will be an offence.

This will require double vaccination or a medical exemption.

Under 18’s are automatically exempted.

There will be difficulties in implementing this, but not the major logistical problems we had initially believed.

There will be apps available for Celtic Park stewards to download and they will scan each vaccine certificate as the holder goes to the ground.

What will happen if folk have “fake” passports? Well the government is going to legislate to make that a criminal offence, so good luck to anyone who tries to use it to get into a football ground. If you get caught that’s going to be pretty bad for you.

Those who haven’t yet been vaccinated will need to hurry; the second vaccination will have to be administered two weeks before the certificate updates to show it. A negative PCR test will not, at this time, be enough to gain entry to the ground.

So this is where we are. The plan has easily cleared the necessary legislative hurdle.

It is not out of the question that it might yet be extended to cover other sectors of the economy; if numbers continue to rise and hospitalisations with them it might be the only alternative to a new lockdown.

This is yet more proof, for those who need it, that we’re going to be living with this thing for a while yet, and all of us will need to continue making sacrifices for the common good.

The positive thing is that this ought to ensure that Parkhead is open for the campaign.

And once that’s sorted, we can all get on with enjoying the games.