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‘Football-Ischgl’: Bayern eager to stop next coronavirus hotbed at Super Cup

Bayern Munich boss Karl-Heinz Rummenigge insists the German giants are eager to stop Thursday's UEFA Super Cup showdown in Budapest turning into a super spreader event due to a high infection rate of the coronavirus there.

Published: 23 September 2020 12:45 CEST
'Football-Ischgl': Bayern eager to stop next coronavirus hotbed at Super Cup
The Super Cup itself on display in Tallin, Estonia in August 2018. Photo: DPA

On Monday, Bavaria's premier minister Markus Söder warned against the match in Budapest becoming a “football-Ischgl”, referring to the Austrian ski resort where thousands of holidaymakers were infected with the virus at the beginning of the pandemic in Europe.

Söder added that amid the pandemic “I really get a stomach ache when it
comes to the Super Cup” between Bayern and Europa League holders Sevilla in
Budapest.

READ ALSO: Bavarian leader Söder has 'stomach ache' over Super Cup coronavirus fears

Rummenigge echoed Söder's comments on Wednesday, insisting Bayern Munich
have “every interest in ensuring that no Ischgl of football takes place” in Budapest.

“I think everyone's stomachs are churning. The game will take place in a city with an rate of infection of over 100 (per 100,000 inhabitants), which is twice as high as that in Munich,” Rummenigge told broadcaster ZDF.

“That has to be taken seriously.”

Up to 20,000 spectators would be allowed by UEFA into Budapest's Puskas Arena in a piloting project to test the return of fans into stadiums.

However, Budapest's mayor Gergely Karacsony wants the game played without
fans.

“If I had the legal means to decide that, I would let the game take place behind closed doors,” he told Hungarian newspaper Nepszava.

Rummenigge anticipates “less than a thousand” Bayern fans will actually make the journey and only around 500 Sevilla fans are expected.

“We have a great interest that they come back healthy and that nobody in Budapest gets infected,” emphasised Rummenigge.

He has promised a “serious and disciplined” approach with both Bayern and Sevilla offering travelling fans Covid-19 tests.

READ ALSO: 'Numbers are too high': Munich tightens coronavirus mask rules and contact restrictions

The Bayern chief also pointed out that to “all those who say that you really have to be extremely careful with the subject. We are”.

Bayern initially had an allocation of 4,500 tickets but hundreds of fans opted not to travel after the German government declared Budapest a risk zone.

European champions Bayern are also flying to Budapest with a small delegation of officials after being heavily criticised when a group of senior figures sat bunched together in the stands for Friday's 8-0 rout of Schalke.

Rummenigge was among the group not wearing masks and seated close together in the VIP stand for the opening game of the new Bundesliga season.

“At the next game we will keep the desired distance and wear masks, no problem,” said the 64-year-old.

READ ALSO: These are the countries and regions on Germany's 'high risk' coronavirus list

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COVID-19

Is the pandemic over in Germany?

As much of Germany lifts - or prepares to lift - the last remaining Covid-19 measures, intensive care units say Covid-19 admissions are no longer straining the system.

Published: 24 January 2023 09:00 CET
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 2nd

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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