KILMARNOCK
THE CHARGE
That Kilmarnock had breached regulations relating to social-distancing requirements for players prior to the postponement of their October 2 match against Motherwell due to a coronavirus outbreak.
THE DETAILS
The SPFL’s judgment said Kilmarnock admitted breaches that related to two aspects of their pre-match preparations.
1 The first was a bus trip to an away fixture. The specific game is not mentioned within the judgment. However, Kilmarnock travelled to face St Mirren the week before requesting their match against Motherwell be postponed. A diagram showed that players were not socially distanced and that a number were facing each other across a table during the journey. The SPFL said the club had failed to consider whether a larger bus — or two buses — would have been needed for the trip.
2 The pre-match meal at the Hilton hotel for that fixture was also identified as an area of potential transmission. Players were seated at round tables and it was ‘clear’ the numbers at any one table exceeded the requirement for adequate social distancing. The club had a Covid-19 officer and a medical officer, but neither were present at the pre-match meal at the Hilton, nor in the bus to and from the away fixture. Kilmarnock’s QC accepted the two areas were ‘issues’ for the club, although he stated that everyone had been wearing masks during the bus journey. The club were also accused of failing to ensure ‘sufficient and effective training and guidance’ had been given to players. While Kilmarnock did develop a Covid-19 operations policy, there was no evidence that a copy was provided to each player.
THE CONCLUSION
The tribunal said: ‘It was submitted, on behalf of the club, that what we are dealing with here are “relatively minor” breaches in their nature. Whilst the club indicated that they were not trying to say that the matter was not “serious” they submitted that in the spectrum of breaches these were at the lower end. ‘We find it hard to consider that repeated breaches (two admitted breaches) that led to the postponement of a football match, against the background explained, could not be seen to be serious. We did not accept that the admitted breaches were minor.’