September 22: Sunderland captain Granit Xhaka has withdrawn from the Swiss national team after admitting he obtained a fake Covid-19 vaccination certificate.
The Prosecutor’s Office in Lucerne confirmed that Xhaka is under investigation and will face questioning, scheduled for early October. Reports in Switzerland say the forgery took place in 2022, when Xhaka was at Arsenal.
The 33-year-old issued a statement saying: “At that time, I personally was very anxious and had serious reservations about the vaccination against Covid-19. I felt a deep mistrust of the vaccine and was overcome by fears and uncertainty. In this state of emotional turmoil, I obtained a vaccination certificate instead of searching through my channels for an appropriate answer to the unresolved questions.
“Today, I can clearly see that this was not the right course of action. It was a mistake. I’m sorry.”
Swiss federation president Peter Knabel said the federation and Xhaka had “jointly concluded that it is in the best interest of the team” that he misses the Nations League games against North Macedonia, Scotland and Slovenia. “We welcome Granit to take this step and face the consequences,” Knabel said, adding that he would reassess after the window.
Vaccination rules varied widely by country in 2022, with many nations requiring proof of entry. Xhaka, Switzerland’s all-time capped men’s player, left Arsenal in 2023 before joining Bayer Leverkusen.
Xhaka says he will “commit to the fact-finding process and cooperate fully with the relevant authorities.”
It is unclear what punishments Xhaka could face, but in 2023 Switzerland’s men’s ice hockey coach Patrick Fischer was found guilty of using a fake Covid-19 certificate to work at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.
Fischer was fined 38,000 Swiss francs by a criminal court. In April this year, he was fired from his job in Switzerland and earlier this month was banned for four years by the International Ice Hockey Federation.
