John Swinney’s incredible own goal over League Cup Final claim

John Swinney has singled out Sunday’s League Cup Final at Hampden as a potential ‘super-spreader’ event while ignoring other gatherings over the last week.

There was another football match played in front of almost 50,000 fans on Saturday while indoor shopping centres throughout the country were busy with Christmas shoppers.

Football matches with crowds of over 10,000 require fans to produce vaccine certification but you can get on a train from Aberdeen to London without any documentation.

An open air venue provides natural ventilation for vaccinated fans but unvaccinated shoppers can be mixing for hours on end with no further restrictions in place from Sunday while football effectively closes the doors.

Deputy First Minister Swinney was sent out on the media circuit yesterday with the Daily Record reporting:

Swinney told BBC Radio Scotland: “It stands to reason that if we have large numbers of people, 50,000 fans, travelling towards a sporting event in one particular part of the country, using multiple modes of transport and interacting with each other, there is a very high danger that that will be a super spreader of an event.”

Asked whether the cup final has the potential to be a super spreader event, the DFM replied: “It could well be and I think I regret the fact that we didn’t make this decision earlier.”

He added: “I would have wished we’d taken the decision earlier. That’s nobody’s fault. I was one of the people involved in the decision.”

Having been asked specifically about the League Cup Final it seems very naive of Swinney not to mention Saturday’s match at Ibrox in the same context.

In August 2020 Swinney was forced into a humiliating U-turn on exam results after using a system that rewarded pupils at traditionally better performing schools ahead of pupils at other schools regardless of classwork before the March Lockdown.