Head of operations and projects Greg Pillinger has spoken about the importance of fans pre-registering their COVID-19 status with the football club.
You can pre-register your COVID-19 vaccination status with the club right now.
Q: Greg, could you start off by telling us the changes that have come into place for supporters attending our games from Boxing Day onwards?
GP: The Government’s ‘Plan B’ legislation came into effect last Wednesday morning at 6am. So, what we’re trying to dispel and get rid of is playing behind-closed-doors or playing to reduced capacities. Now, as part of those negotiations that all clubs are having with the Premier League, and as part of conversations between the Premier League, government and the DCMS, we’re going to asking fans to comply with a three-stage process to enter our stadium.
The first one is pre-registering (their COVID-19 vaccination status). We encourage all season ticket holders and anybody who has had a casual matchday ticket to come onto the website, through their OneCity account to pre-register their vaccination details.
Secondly, there will be COVID marshals on a matchday at Carrow Road, carrying out spot checks, and we must achieve a 20% spot check rate at Carrow Road, which for us will equate to 5,000 fans.
Thirdly, which we don’t want to get to, if we’ve got supporters who aren’t pre-registered and who haven’t got the necessary vaccine documentation on a matchday, we do withhold the right as per Government legislation to refuse entry to those supporters. But, we don’t want to get there.
Q: How important is it that supporters make the club aware of their COVID vaccination status ahead of Boxing Day?
GP: Very important. In wider society, in restaurants and other establishments, they're asking for a 100% check of NHS vaccination apps. What we’ve negotiated with the Government and DCMS, it’ll be very hard for us to achieve 100% checks on a matchday. Turnstiles open 90 minutes before kick-off, and trying to check 27,000 people in 90 minutes is not achievable. So a part of this workaround with the government is to get pre-registered. The more people we can get pre-registered, the more we can relax the spot checking on a matchday. A combination of pre-registration and the COVID marshals spot checking on matchday will hopefully keep stadia open and keep them open with full capacities.
Q: How can supporters upload their COVID pass to the pre-registration form?
GP: All of our season ticket holders and members should have had an email, that email will direct them to the website via their OneCity accounts. Follow the step-by-step stages, it’s a fairly simple process. You’re then asked to upload you COVID pass or your vaccination pass – go onto your phone, download the NHS App and once you’ve got the QR code showing on your phone, at the bottom of the screen you’ll have the option of downloading the code. On Google phones you can download it as a PDF and attach it to the registration form and send it onto the club. But we’ve noticed on Apple phones, it’s sometimes problematic, so if you do have an Apple phone, once your QR code is showing, we ask fans to screenshot that QR code, save the screenshot and upload the photo of that screenshot. PDFs aren’t quite working with Apple phones at the moment.
Q: How often do supporters need to fill out this form?
GP: So at the moment, as per legislation it’s once only. This plan may develop for future games and in future months, but at the moment we’re asking everybody to pre-register. At the moment, it’s double vaccination – in time to come, it may be a booster vaccination required, so we may need to go out to fans again to pre-register their current vaccine status which may include the booster jab. But at the moment, it’s just a one-off registration and we’ll see where that goes in future games and months.
Q: Why are the club not accepting the COVID-19 vaccination cards?
GP: It’s not club driven, this is government legislation. Unfortunately from Arsenal on Boxing Day, we can’t accept the COVID-19 vaccination card where you’ve registered which day you’ve had the card and also the serial number of the jab you’ve had. So please, all supporters need to go onto the website and pre-register where possible – ask family and friends to help you if you’re not IT literate. If you can’t do that, please take an lateral flow test within 24 hours of the fixture and register that with the NHS website. You’ll get an email or text back from them and then show that to the COVID marshal on matchday.
Q: You mention the lateral flow test acceptance there, that’s another option for fans that can’t prove their vaccination status – is that right?
GP: If you can’t for whatever reason show proof of double vaccination on the NHS App or website, you are able to do a lateral flow test. However, from the Arsenal game on Boxing Day, what’s not accepted is the test bed that you drip the liquid into. What you have to do is register your negative COVID-19 test with the NHS website or App. They will send you an email or text message back to say it is negative and you can show that text message or email to the COVID marshal on a matchday. But it must be taken within 48 hours of the fixture, ideally 24 but if not, 48 hours is acceptable.
Q: What about the fans that are exempt from vaccination?
GP: That fits into two groups – those who are medically exempt. Currently today, a verbal exemption from the supporter is acceptable, but from Christmas Day, fans can phone up 119 and pre-register their exemption and that will come back at them in the form of a letter which they can show on a matchday. In future days, we understand that will go onto a QR code – very similar to the vaccine QR code. Also, all under-18s are exempt from these checks. So no need to pre-register if you’re under 18 at the moment.
Q: We understand the pre-registration process is going very well at the moment but what happens to those fans who don’t fill it out from a club perspective?
GP: First of all, we urge all fans to fill it out. We want as many fans as possible to fill it out, if they’re unable to do this, they’re able to go to the NHS website and request a paper copy of their vaccination code, which will also be accepted on a matchday. The vast majority of our supporters are on email, so we hitting all the email addresses first. Subsequent days, you’ll see follow-up messages either by phone call or text message, or if we get to this stage, we’ll send out handwritten letters as well. The default setting is, please pre-register wherever possible.
Q: You’ve covered a wide range of topics here, but how can fans contact the club if they have any other queries?
GP: At the moment, it’s via a specific email address which we’ve set up just for the pre-registration process. That is covid.registration@canaries.co.uk. If you can email in there, it may not be answered straight away, but we have a team up in the main office at Carrow Road who are sifting through these emails and trying to respond to as many as possible. We’re trying to find themes that if things are going wrong, we’ll then upload the answer on our FAQs sheet. Fans can there go there and read up on the more obvious things that are going wrong, rather than emailing in. Hopefully the emails will get less and less as more and more people pre-register, but in time to come when we get fewer and fewer fans which aren’t pre-registered, then we can start opening up telephone lines and perhaps have personal calls with the fans that aren’t pre-registered.