Amid some scepticism about Covid-19 vaccines in SA, DStv Premiership side Cape Town City have confirmed all their staff members, including players, have agreed to be jabbed.

Yesterday, City chairman John Comitis told Sowetan all the workers at the club were ready to be vaccinated without being forced. The Citizens are the first Premier Soccer League (PSL) club to publicly announce their vaccine drive.

“At this stage it appears like everyone at the club is willing to get vaccinated. There have been no issues. Those who’ve had Covid in the last 30 days are not allowed to be vaccinated at this point, but apart from them, everybody has stepped forward and are willingly looking forward to get a vaccine,’’ said Comitis.

“I think everyone at the club has realised the responsibility they have not only to themselves but to their families…they’re out there on the pitches, travelling all the time and it’s important that they are safe and they’re not coming home with Covid, spreading it through to their families. Everybody is on board.”

Comitis wants the society to use City’s initiative as a case study to be certain that getting vaccinated isn’t detrimental to one's life as some anti-vaxxers have claimed. City’s vaccine programme gets under way today at the Cape Town Convention Centre.

“The most important part of the initiative is to actually show the public this is a safe procedure that we’re willing to take. This will assist others to have confidence ultimately what we need is the fans to come back to stadiums because without the fans there’s no real football,’’ Comitis said.

“We plan to rollout our vaccination drive on Friday [today] at the Cape Town Convention Centre. This is an initiative that has to happen across the board of every sporting code. At the end of the day football has led the way in regard to returning to full action during the height of the pandemic [via the bio-bubble initiative], so it’s important that we as football clubs prioritise to have vaccines.”