The Brazilian soccer club has announced plans to purchase vaccines for players, officials and supporters with a paid subscription.
Top Brazilian soccer club Athletico Paranaense has said they want to purchase COVID-19 vaccines and make them available to players, officials as well as fans, with paid memberships, for free.
Earlier this week, the Brazilian Congress passed a law allowing private companies to buy vaccines and, if it goes into effect, Athletico said they would buy them, working with other companies.
The Curitiba-based club, which won the Copa Sudamericana in 2018, said on Thursday it would make the vaccines available “to all of their employees, players, backstage staff and [members] who help by paying their monthly dues during the pandemic, even if they cannot go to the stadium ”.
Athletico did not say how many members they had, but media reports put the figure between 20,000 and 30,000 before the pandemic.
Brazil hit hard
Monthly club memberships, which are similar to seasonal memberships in Europe, cost between 75 Brazilian real ($ 13.5) and 350 real ($ 62.9).
“Athletico calls on all institutions involved in football to also do their part to help the country defeat the COVID-19 pandemic,” the club added in a statement.
Brazil has been hit hard by the pandemic, with officials reporting a record-breaking daily death toll of 4,249 on Thursday.
More than 345,000 people have died from the virus in South America’s most populous country.
Brazil leads the world in the average daily number of new deaths reported from the coronavirus.
The World Health Organization has acknowledged the dire situation in the country due to the coronavirus, saying the country is in very critical condition with an overwhelmed health system.