The eight Aberdeen FC players who broke coronavirus guidelines have apologised to the club's fans, the manager, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and Scotland's healthcare workers.
Two of the eight tested positive, while the other six now have to self-isolate after they visited a bar in the city last Saturday.
Their Scottish Premiership match against St. Johnstone that was due to take place this weekend was called off on Friday evening.
In a statement on the club's website on Saturday afternoon, the players described their actions as "a huge error of judgement".
Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon didn't hold back in taking aim at the players when reacting to the incident in her daily Covid-19 update on Friday.
She described their behaviour as "completely unacceptable" and went on to say such actions “put at risk the return of the game” and added that she was “pretty furious” over the affair and that “all bets are off” if anything similar happened in future.
The statement in full from the players said,
"First and foremost we would like to apologise to every AFC fan, the manager, everyone at the Club, the football authorities, the First Minister, all healthcare workers along with everyone else that has worked tirelessly around the clock to get the country, and in particular football, back up and running again.
"We, as a small group of players, made a huge error of judgement last weekend by thinking it was ok to visit a city centre venue together.
"None of us could have foreseen the escalation of Covid-19 cases in the Grampian area, nor did we deliberately attempt to flout or disobey Government guidelines which we all must adhere to, or indeed the clear guidelines set out by the club.
"This was by no means a team night out as has been portrayed and while we attempted to comply with Government social distancing guidelines, we now recognise that our group of 8 exceeded the number of households permitted to meet up. This was a genuine error on our part as professional football players, and in doing so, we have let our manager down.
"As players, we appreciate our Club has gone above and beyond to put protocols in place to protect us and it was never our intention to put those in jeopardy, or to put our teammates or football staff at risk.
"As a player group, we once again apologise unreservedly to the fans, the manager, the Board and all the staff at the Club.
"Jonny Hayes, Michael Devlin, Scott McKenna, Matty Kennedy, Sam Cosgrove, Dylan McGeouch, Craig Bryson, Bruce Anderson."
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