Prestigious Metro Vancouver soccer academy to hire only fully-vaccinated staff
Posted August 4, 2021 3:48 pm.
Last Updated August 4, 2021 4:14 pm.
RICHMOND (NEWS 1130) — One of Canada’s leading soccer academies is taking a firm stand when it comes to vaccinations for COVID-19.
Richmond-based Total Soccer has announced its intention to only hire fully-vaccinated staff this fall.
Given that Total Soccer staff will be working with many players too young to be vaccinated, we have decided to make COVID vaccination mandatory for all new staff. All existing staff have voluntarily agreed to comply with this policy and will be fully vaxxed by the start of Sept. pic.twitter.com/5bwn2Rug7t
— Total Soccer (@TotalSoccerBC) August 4, 2021
“We thought this was a way that we could sort of go up-and-above in terms of providing safety to our customers and our customer’s kids,” says Total Soccer co-owner Brendan Quarry. “And to be honest, its also about the safety of our staff members as well.”
After consulting lawyers, Total Soccer is now making it official policy to only hire new staff who have been fully vaccinated.
The academy’s current staff are also being included in this new policy.
“We talked to our existing staff members and told them what it is we were going to do, and we asked them if they were willing to voluntarily disclose their vaccination status and comply with this policy for new hires,” notes Quarry.
He says there was no pushback from any of their current staff when the new policy was presented to them.
“Just about everyone was fully vaccinated anyway,” says Quarry.
The motivation for the hard-line vaccination policy for Total Soccer comes down to its clients.
“As we know, kids under 12 years old can’t get vaccinated, so they’re particularly vulnerable moving forward, especially with the Delta variant, etc,” notes Quarry.
He also says part of their rationale is giving parents one less thing to worry about as they prepare to send their children back to school in the fall.
“We wanted them to come to Total Soccer and not have to have an additional worry when their kids are attending extra-curricular activities,” said Quarry.
First established in Richmond in 1997 as one of the first pay-per-use soccer academies in Metro Vancouver, Total Soccer usually trains around 600 soccer players of various ages every year.
Some of its alumni includes current Canadian Women’s National Soccer Team players Christine Sinclair and Julia Grosso.
