The news earlier this week that a UK club had been fined €5,000 by UEFA for failing to correctly apply the ‘Return To Play’ protocols for a match,  should be a wake-up call for any club not yet confident that they have the systems and processes in place to manage COVID-related rules and regulations.

The supposed breach relates to paragraph 14.3.1 of the protocols, which states that people must remain in the right zones of a stadium during matchdays.

• The accreditation system must allow stewards to clearly identify who is authorised to be in which zone at what time
• All stewards, safety and security personnel must be clearly briefed about both the stadium zoning system and the various times, as well as the importance of its application
• All staff working in the stadium must be asked to respect the system and to cooperate fully

Put simply, you need to have access zones, you need to be able to assign a zone to each person in the stadium, you need a way of identifying on the ground who is authorised to enter each zone, and your staff need to be well-trained in managing that process.

As a way of managing all of those requirements, clubs and stadiums around the world are reviewing and adapting their accreditation procedures to comply with these protocols, and many others set by local and national governments, various federations and governing bodies.

The team here are Accredit HQ have been working with our own clients to help them adapt and deal with these challenges as they arise. Accreditation is what we do, and we have developed a range of COVID-Tools to support clubs solve challenges relating to track and trace, capacity management, data collection for additional health screening, the management of access control zones, and the production of accreditation badges.