Ange Postecoglou's brilliant answer on vaccine passports and double vaccinating Celtic players

By John McGinley

September 11, 2021

Celtic manager Ange Postecoglou has insisted he doesn’t have the knowledge or expertise to rally against the introduction of vaccine passports in Scottish football.

The Scottish Parliament has voted to introduce vaccine passports from October 1st, which will impact all outdoor crowds above 10,000 people. [BBC]

Top-flight managers such as St Mirren’s Jim Goodwin have spoken out against the concept over the last week, urging clubs and the Scottish FA to fight against its introduction. [Daily Record]

However, Postecoglou personally feels it’s not really up to football managers to tell others how to do their jobs.

Speaking to BBC Radio Scotland [17:16] after today’s win over Ross County, the Bhoys boss said: “My view on all these things is that there are experts dealing with this on a minute by minute and day by day basis. They have a lot more knowledge and lot more information than I do. At some point you’ve got to rely on expert advice and we have to be guided by that.

“I think people put these measures in place so that life can get back to normal. Us managers get really sensitive when people tell us how to do our jobs, I’m not going to do the opposite.”

Postecoglou was then asked by Kenny Macintyre whether or not he is enforcing that Celtic players get themselves double vaccinated.

Again, the Celtic manager refuted that is his role, responding: “I’m a manager of a football club, my job is to give our players the best possible information from the experts and let them decide what’s best for them.

“I’d like to think all of them seek the best advice possible because that’s how society should work, mate. There are too many people throughout this period who offer opinions with very little basis.”

Postecoglou is spot on here and again is showing his excellent leadership skills. He can’t enforce personal health choices on players, just as he isn’t best placed to criticise a government for the introduction of something based on knowledge he doesn’t have.

I’m not either, so I’m not going to bother!

The simple fact is that vaccine passports are on the way to Celtic Park and the club have to put in place measures to deal with that as best they can.

In other news, Ian Bankier expected to leave Celtic chairman role soon; more on McKay shared.