Swiss Football Captain Under Investigation Over Forged COVID-19 Vaccination Certificate

Switzerland football captain Granit Xhaka has admitted obtaining a false COVID-19 vaccination certificate in 2022. Xhaka, who was playing for Arsenal at the time, says he had serious concerns about COVID-19 vaccination, deeply mistrusted the vaccine, and was gripped by fear and uncertainty. Swiss prosecutors are investigating the circumstances surrounding the certificate, and Xhaka has said he will cooperate fully with the authorities.

While obtaining a false medical certificate is obviously wrong, Xhaka’s actions should be distinguished from the concerns about COVID-19 vaccines that he says motivated it. The vaccines were developed and deployed at unprecedented speed. Regulators maintained that their safety and effectiveness standards had not been sacrificed, and large clinical trials involving tens of thousands of people were conducted. But the accelerated timetable inevitably meant that years of long-term follow-up data did not exist when vaccination campaigns began.

Moreover, Xhaka was far from alone in having questions. COVID-19 certificates were used in Switzerland to gain access to various activities, venues, and international travel, meaning that people who chose not to be vaccinated could face significant restrictions. Whatever one thinks of Xhaka’s response to those circumstances, people had a legitimate right to ask questions about a newly developed medical intervention and to make informed decisions about their own health. His story is a reminder of the profound social divisions created during the pandemic when personal medical decisions became increasingly tied to participation in everyday life.

To read how COVID-19 vaccine research published in 2024 confirmed links with serious health problems, see this article on our website.