{"id":49750,"date":"2026-04-16T06:01:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T06:01:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/49750\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T06:01:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T06:01:09","slug":"switzerland-fire-ice-hockey-coach-who-entered-china-on-false-covid-19-vaccine-certificate-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/49750\/","title":{"rendered":"Switzerland fire ice hockey coach who entered China on false Covid-19 vaccine certificate"},"content":{"rendered":"<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Switzerland have fired the ice hockey coach who admitted he used a certificate falsely claiming he had been vaccinated against Covid-19 to get around China\u2019s travel restrictions for the 2022 Winter Olympics.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">In a statement late Monday, head coach Patrick Fischer said he made a \u201cserious mistake in this matter\u201d by travelling to Beijing with the Switzerland men\u2019s team using false paperwork.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The Swiss Ice Hockey Federation initially supported him, saying the case was closed because he had admitted to his mistake. But that changed Wednesday with news of his dismissal.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">\u201cThe case is legally closed but has triggered a public debate about values and trust, which the federation takes very seriously,\u201d federation president Urs Kessler said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">\u201cFrom today\u2019s perspective, our initial assessment \u2013 that the matter was \u200cconcluded \u2013 \u2060was too short-sighted. This is about values and respect, that are fundamental to Swiss Ice Hockey and which Patrick Fischer did not uphold in 2022.\u201d<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Fischer had said before he was fired that \u201cI\u2019m very sorry if I\u2019ve disappointed people with this situation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"China had some of the strictest Covid-19 rules in the world ahead of the 2022 Winter Olympics. Photo: AP\" data-qa=\"BaseImage-handleRenderImage-StyledImage\" class=\"e1gf69pb2 css-6ikqhs e445x7d0\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/523a244c-4b6f-4ef4-bb0d-9d2d36dbf607_c523fa0d.jpg\" title=\"China had some of the strictest Covid-19 rules in the world ahead of the 2022 Winter Olympics. Photo: AP\"\/>China had some of the strictest Covid-19 rules in the world ahead of the 2022 Winter Olympics. Photo: AP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Switzerland have fired the ice hockey coach who admitted he used a certificate falsely claiming he had been&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":49735,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[28189,351,14585,28486,1789,1821,5041,28484,28487,28483,17,28485,2352],"class_list":{"0":"post-49750","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-switzerland","8":"tag-beijing","9":"tag-china","10":"tag-covid-19","11":"tag-jan-cadieux","12":"tag-nhl","13":"tag-olympic-games","14":"tag-patrick-fischer","15":"tag-patrizia-kummer","16":"tag-srf","17":"tag-swiss-ice-hockey-federation","18":"tag-switzerland","19":"tag-urs-kessler","20":"tag-winter-olympics"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/116412867145564446","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49750\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}