MMA referee Jerin Valel got in some trouble when he returned home to Manitoba, Canada after a stint officiating UFC 260 in Las Vegas last month. Valel, a civil servent with the provincial government, had travelled to Vegas despite a travel ban imposed on government employees on February 1 (per CBC).
The ban was instituted after a number of civil servants were caught going on vacation despite the government’s insistence that people only travel for essential trips during the COVID-19 pandemic.
As punishment for his trip to Nevada Valel has been stripped of his interim assistant deputy minister of transformation title, which he assumed in early March.