COVID-19 Tests Safe 2020-21 Season for the KHL

Following the opening of the 2020-2021 season on 2 September, the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) announced on 10 September that it had put in place a highly secured COVID-19 test verification system to ensure the health of players, sports staff and judges. The system is provided in cooperation with laboratory network KDL and Swiss secure traceability leader SICPA.

Every 5 days KDL will carry out regular Covid-19 tests in the cities where hockey games will take place – in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Finland and Latvia. Test results will be ready in maximum 48 hours. The test data will be secured and made available for verification through the Certus™ myHealth Pass solution provided by SICPA.

CERTUS™ myHealth Pass provides guaranteed and secured proof of test status in both digital and material form. It protects against fraud thanks to a cutting edge blockchain-secured digital seal, based on the Guardtime KSI® Blockchain.

Test status data is revocable and thus always up-to-date. It respects personal privacy concerns while providing incontrovertible assurances of health status to the sporting authorities. The credential is authenticated by scanning a tamper-proof QR-code with a smartphone or a computer. The verification is independent of the document issuer. No personal or sensitive information is stored, either directly or encrypted, in any data base or on the blockchain and no extra-infrastructure is required.

The solution will permit near normal programming for the season and leads the way not only in the professional hockey world but in tackling the current challenges for professional sports in general.

Sergey Dobrokhvalov, Vice President of KHL:

“The 2020-2021 season presented us with the crucial task of finding a way to ensure the safety and good health of players, club staff and referees. The solution to the problem for KHL came through cooperation with the KDL network of laboratories. Supported by KDL we have accurate tests, with results received rapidly. This allows for timely detection of any cases of Covid-19 infection and prevents further spread of the virus. This is the first fully secured system to be put in place in the professional sports sector to manage Covid-19 risks”

Yuri Leonov CEO of the KDL medical network:

“Our cooperation with KHL has been an important advance. We are pleased to be supporting them to assure the good health of players and, ultimately, the success of the KHL championship. We have been working on this scheme since late July to ensure it was up and running for the new KHL season. We are expecting that more than 100,000 Covid-19 tests will be performed this year by KDL labs for the sports industry and other clients. All test results will be protected by CERTUS™ technology”
 
 

Eric Corbier Chief Commercial Officer of SICPA: 

“SICPA’s technology is tried and tested and provides much needed high security at this critical time. It is easy to use, portable and fully respects personal privacy concerns. We are delighted that it will be supporting safe practice of this exciting sport and the Kontinental Hockey League”.

About KHL
KHL oversees professional ice hockey in 6 leading ice hockey nations, the Russian Federation, Finland, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Latvia and China. It runs 775 championship games, 98 playoffs and 7 set of finals annually. KHL partners are Sogaz, Mastercard, Rostelekom, Fonbet, Megafon, SAP, Haier and Hankook. 
https://en.khl.ru/ 

About KDL
KDL was established in 2003 and is the third largest network of medical labs in the Russia Federation. It has 13 labs and 205 medical offices in 45 Russian Cities. Its investors include the EBRD, UFG Asset Management and the CapMan Russia Fund.
www.kdl.ru

About SICPA
Founded in Switzerland in 1927 SICPA’s mission is Enabling Trust, with constant innovation at its core. The company is the leading global supplier of security features for banknotes and of secured track and trace systems for Governments. CERTUS™ myHealth Pass uses ad-vanced technologies including tamper-proof QR and Blockchain to provide a high level of se-curity. 
www.sicpa.com