Xhaka misses Swiss games over fake vaccination saga

BERN, Switzerland (AP):

Switzerland captain Granit Xhaka acknowledged mistakes on Monday and withdrew from the national squad after admitting that he used fake documents during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The 33-year-old Xhaka was suspected of obtaining a fake vaccination certificate in 2022 from a doctor who is under investigation by prosecutors in Lucerne, Swiss media reported at the weekend.

“It was a mistake. I am sorry,” Xhaka said Monday in a post on his Instagram account, explaining that he had at the time felt a “deep distrust” of COVID-19 vaccines. He added that he would cooperate with authorities.

Switzerland’s most-capped player, with 152 appearances for the national team, will not join the squad for four upcoming Nations League matches.

Swiss Football Federation president Peter Knäbel said in a statement that the federation welcomed Xhaka taking responsibility and fully clarifying the matter.

“At the same time, we have agreed together that it’s in the team’s best interest to play these matches without him,” Knäbel said.

The World Cup quarter-finalists will travel to face North Macedonia and Scotland before hosting Slovenia and North Macedonia, both in Lucerne, in their second-tier Nations League group.

Later on Monday, at the Swiss team’s training camp in Turkey, Knäbel told reporters that there had been no discussion about Xhaka relinquishing the captaincy.

Knäbel declined to draw comparisons with former Switzerland men’s ice hockey coach Patrick Fischer, who was fired this year after reports that he obtained a fake vaccination certificate to travel to China for the 2022 Beijing Olympics. Chinese authorities had mandated vaccination or a three-week quarantine for those attending the Games.

That was a vaccination requirement to attend the Olympics, Knäbel said, while Swiss football authorities had only recommended that players receive the vaccine during the pandemic.