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Bundesliga: Germany to restart football league with ‘ghost games’

The government plans to allow Germany's Bundesliga to restart behind closed doors in May after weeks of shutdown imposed to control the spread of the coronavirus.

Published: 6 May 2020 09:27 CEST

Bundesliga: Germany to restart football league with 'ghost games'

Is football about to get back up and running in Germany? Photo: DPA

That's according to a draft document ahead of a meeting between Chancellor Angela Merkel and state premiers on Wednesday, May 6th.

Politicians believe restarting play in the first and second divisions to “limit the economic damage” for the 36 clubs is “acceptable”, the document showed.

Games would be shown without spectators attending, so-called 'ghost games'.

Chancellor Angela Merkel and state premiers will set a date for the games to begin in a telephone conference later Wednesday, with German media reporting May 21st was a possible candidate.

“Restarting match activity must be preceded by a two-week quarantine, where appropriate in the form of a training camp” for players, the document read.

Germany's influential DFL football league has long urged restarting play, which it says is vital for a sector that employs 56,000 people in Germany.

It has offered authorities a strict infection control plan based on numerous coronavirus tests, which it says would allow the competition to be relaunched with low risk.

READ ALSO: German Bundesliga starts testing players for coronavirus amid restart hopes

Health Minister Jens Spahn has judged that the scheme “makes sense and can serve as an example for other forms of professional sport,” although “it has to be lived up to”.

German clubs stand to recoup €300 million ($325 million) in TV rights if they are allowed to contest the nine remaining match days in the Bundesliga season.

That could help soak up some of their financial losses, with more than a dozen of the 36 first- and second-division teams on the brink of bankruptcy according to media reports.

The DFL will hold a general meeting by video conference Thursday where representatives from the clubs will finalise details of the restart.

Most have already begun training again in anticipation.

READ ALSO: Coronavirus forces first ever Bundesliga game in Germany behind closed doors

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Is the pandemic over in Germany?

Despite a difficult winter of respiratory illnesses, intensive care units in Germany say Covid-19 admissions have almost halved. The number of cases having to be treated in the ICU has gone down to 800 from 1,500 at the beginning of this month.

“Corona is no longer a problem in intensive care units,” Gernot Marx, Vice President of the German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine, told the German Editorial Network. “A the moment, we don’t have to think every day about how to still ensure the care of patients, but how to actually run a service that can help.”

Marx said the drop has allowed them to catch up on many postponed surgeries.

The number of sick employees in hospitals is also falling, helping to relieve the pressure on personnel.

The easing pressure on hospitals correlates with the assessment of prominent virologist and head of the Virology department at Berlin’s Charite – Christian Drosten – who said in December that the pandemic was close to ending, with the winter wave being an endemic one.

German federal and state governments are now in the midst of lifting the last of the country’s pandemic-related restrictions. Free Covid-19 antigen tests for most people, with exceptions for medical personnel, recently ended.

READ ALSO: Free Covid-19 tests end in Germany

Six federal states – Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg, Hessen, Thuringia, Lower Saxony, and Schleswig-Holstein – have ended mandatory isolation periods for people who test positive for Covid-19.

Bavaria, Saxony-Anhalt, and Schleswig-Holstein have ended the requirement to wear FFP2 masks on public transport, while Berlin, Brandenburg, Saxony, Thuringia, and Mecklenburg-West Pomerania will follow suit on February 2nd.

At that time, the federal government will also drop its requirement for masks to be worn on long-distance trains. Labour Minister Hubertus Heil says that’s when he also intends to exempt workplaces – apart from medical locations – from a mask requirement.

READ ALSO: Germany to drop mask mandate in trains and buses from February 2 nd

Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg will also end the requirement for patients to wear a mask in doctor’s offices. That’s a requirement that, so far, will stay in place everywhere else. Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach has also said that he thinks this requirement should remain.

But some public health insurers and general practitioners are calling for a nationwide end to the obligation for wearing masks in doctor’s offices.

“The pandemic situation is over,” National Association of Statutory Health Physicians (KBV) Chair Andreas Gassen told the RND network. “High-risk patients aren’t treated in all practices. It should generally be left up to medical colleagues to decide whether they want to require masks in their practices.”

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