Nicola Sturgeon described a statement from Aberdeen FC after two players tested positive for coronavirus as a “complacent abomination”, according to texts revealed at the UK Covid inquiry.
The players had earlier been caught breaching lockdown rules.
Eight Aberdeen players were pictured visiting a city centre bar in August 2020, breaching the protocols in force at the time.
Jonny Hayes, Michael Devlin, Scott McKenna, Matty Kennedy, Sam Cosgrove, Dylan McGeouch, Craig Bryson and Bruce Anderson all apologised for the “error of judgement”, which forced two games against St Johnstone and St Mirren to be postponed.
In a text shown at the UK Covid-19 inquiry – which is sitting in Edinburgh – National Clinical Director Professor Jason Leitch was shown a message he was sent by Ms Sturgeon.
Linking to the August 6 statement, Ms Sturgeon said: “This statement – from a club that’s just allowed its players to breach the rules – is a complacent abomination.”
In another conversation between Prof Leitch can be seen urging then sports minister Joe FitzPatrick to force Aberdeen to cancel its games rather then postpone, meaning they would forfeit the points.
“I think postponing rewards bad behaviour, cancelling and forfeiting the points seems much more appropriate,” he said.
The games were eventually postponed and played at a later date.
The incident involving the eight players was one of several breaches by high profile figures which prompted an angry response from politicians.
In a briefing days after the bar visit was revealed, Ms Sturgeon used the incident to issue a “yellow card” warning to Scottish football.
Asked whether she would cancel the return of football games on August 11, Ms Sturgeon said: “We can’t have privileged football players deciding they are not doing that and just to decide not to bother.
“This can’t go on. What are we going to do about it? I want to get to a situation here where clubs and players live up to their responsibilities because I don’t want the price of this to be paid by fans who want to watch football even although they can’t go as normal.”
She added: “Let me end by putting this as clearly as I can in language that the football world will understand. Consider today the yellow card.
“The next time it will be the red card because you will leave us with absolutely no choice.”
