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‘Difficult to accept’: Germany’s Bundesliga goes back behind closed doors

The Bundesliga goes back behind closed doors this weekend with Borussia Dortmund leading the complaints against the government's decision to lock out fans in an attempt to help curb record coronavirus numbers.

Published: 30 October 2020 13:35 CET
'Difficult to accept': Germany's Bundesliga goes back behind closed doors
A Bundesliga game in Berlin on October 17th between Hertha BSC and VfB Stuttgart with strict social distancing rules. Photo: DPA

On Friday, Germany reported a record 18,681 new cases of Covid-19 in the previous 24 hours.

Amid measures announced Wednesday, all professional sport, including the Bundesliga, must be played behind closed doors until at least the end of November, a return to the end of last season when terraces had to remain empty.

The clubs can survive on money from the sale of the German Football League's broadcasting rights, but their funds are hit hard by a lack of matchday revenue.

Since the start of the season in mid-September, Germany's top-flight clubs had been allowed to admit small number of fans, providing their hygiene plan was approved by the local health authority.

Dortmund has posted an open letter on their website questioning the decision to again exclude spectators despite having had their 'complex hygiene concept' approved.

“It's difficult to accept that facts do not count,” said the statement.

READ ALSO: Germany's Bundesliga: 'All clubs preparing to host fans for new seasons

“Every spectator in our stadiums was disciplined; nobody was infected in the fresh air.

“However, we accept the situation as it is and continue to do our small part to flatten the curve,”  the club said, urging fans to “keep their distance, wear masks, avoid gatherings and parties”.

Dortmund's home league showdown with Bayern Munich on November 7th will be behind closed doors.

Yet 11,500 fans were allowed to watch a 4-0 home win over Freiburg in early October.

As the rate of infection has risen, so the allowed attendance limit dwindled to just 300 for last Saturday's 3-0 win over Schalke in the Ruhr derby.

Dortmund's stance is backed by a study of large events, published Thursday, which found that if hygiene measures are followed, the risk of infection would be “low to very low overall”.

The results are from August's 'RESTART-19' project when scientists collected data from an indoor concert in Leipzig attended by 1,400 volunteers.

For European champions Bayern Munich, all home games since the pandemic hit Europe in mid-March have been behind closed doors on advice from the local health authority.

Spectators in at a Hamburg match between FC St. Pauli and FC Heidenheim on September 29th. Photo: DPA

Survival

Bayern chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge says they expect “more than 100 million in lost revenues” this season.

“Across Europe, every club loses between €50 and 200 million in a season that it has to play without spectators,” Rummenigge told German daily Bild last Sunday.

“You can count on five fingers how long a football club can survive that”.

Current Bundesliga leaders RB Leipzig are backed by the deep pockets of Austrian energy drinks giants Red Bull.

Commercial director Florian Scholz says they factored a lack of matchday revenue this season in their planning, as all clubs were advised to do by the league, “but that won't work out well over a long period of time”.

Further down the league, Werder Bremen are considering furloughing staff.

“We will be financed through to January, then we will look at our next options,” president Hubertus Hess-Grunewald told Bild.

According to reports, Eintracht Frankfurt expect to have used up cash reserves built up over the last two years by the time the season ends in May.

Champions League sides Borussia Mönchengladbach and RB Leipzig begrudgingly accept the decision to keep fans out.

“I think in extraordinary times, sometimes it's just as important to make a fist in your pocket in the interest of everyone,” said Gladbach sports director Max Eberl.

“It hurts us, but we are not threatened at all, however we know that caterers and also the retail trade are again facing huge problems.”

RB Leipzig coach Julian Nagelsmann agrees that something had to be done to curb the sky-rocketing infection numbers.

“Unfortunately, the figures are developing in the wrong direction and we must therefore accept the situation as it is,” said Nagelsmann.

Member comments

  1. Can the majority of supporters, spectators and clubs truly say that they have not been on holiday, parties, weddings, celebrations, bars/clubs/restaurants etc. and always kept their social distance over the last few months? If not?
    Do not complain now.
    The government is doing the correct thing to protect people and support us.

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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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