Norwich City are exploring the possibility of supporters adding their Covid status to season tickets to help ease congestion at turnstiles when compulsory checks come into force.

Fans will be asked to provide proof of vaccination or a negative Covid test to attend matches with crowds of over 10,000 from December 15, after the Government announced a move to “Plan B” of its strategy to tackle the virus this winter.

The new rules were among measures announced by Prime minister Boris Johnson intended to target the spread of the Omicron variant.

It will affect all Premier League and Championship stadiums, as well as many in League One and League Two, though the measures will not come into force for a week, meaning they will not be in place in time for this weekend’s games.

Norwich City play host to Manchester United this Saturday and Aston Villa on December 14.

Mandatory checks are unlikely to be in place until the visit of Arsenal on Boxing Day, the first home game after the new rules come into force.

“We are waiting for further guidance from the Premier League as to what this will look like,” said a spokesman.

“We expect we won’t have to do anything for the Manchester United and Aston Villa games but it is anticipated that from the Arsenal game there will be mandatory checks.

“We are now working with the league and in-house to step up the checks that have been voluntary to ramp them up to become compulsory for everyone in the stadium.”

Whether supporters could upload Covid passports onto season tickets so both could be scanned simultaneously is being looked at to help speed up the process of getting more than 27,000 people in the ground, they added.

The prospect of slower than normal queues are also likely to see supporters asked to arrive at the ground earlier than normal before kick-off.

“Timings of when supporters tend to arrive, about 15 minutes before kick-off, will make this a real logistical challenge to manage,” said the club spokesman.

“Obviously doing voluntary checks on a small percentage of fans is very different from doing mandatory checks on 100pc of fans.

“That is why we are talking to the league. We will try to get in place whatever we can to accelerate the process.”