Hamilton’s Covid bill is more than record buy

HAMILTON ACCIES are closing in on a £250,000 spend on Covid precautions after hitting a testing milestone yesterday.

And Covid officer Scott Struthers has revealed it has cost the club more than their record signing of keeper Tomas Cerny in 2009.

Accies conducted their 2500th Covid test yesterday when goalie coach Brian Potter was swabbed in the latest round of checks.

And that takes the total spend on testing this season to £225,000 – almost £50,000 more than Accies spent on Cerny.

Struthers said: “We are just highlighting to fans how much the testing is costing the club.

“If you equate it to a player, that’s higher than our record purchase.

“The club paid £182,000 for Cerny, so we’ve spent more this season on testing than we have on a player in our history.

“Everybody is doing it [testing] now. It is compulsory at every level that is playing, all the way down to the women’s first team level as well.

“Leagues One and Two are now having to test and, in their case, twice a week with midweek games coming up.

“We are lucky we are just once a week at the moment and that figure is just purely players and staff here.

“It highlights the cost to clubs to keep playing – and with no gate money.

“The figure is still rising with two months of the season to go.

“Our under-18s are back this week so they’ll need to be tested as well if they want to play and we are just below £5000 a week in testing at the moment.

“We are not having a go at anyone, just highlighting what is going into the club continuing to play.”