“The pandemic worked like a catalyst,” says fan researcher Harald Lange in an interview with ntv.de. But the pandemic is far from over. As shown not least by the case of Joshua Kimmich and new ghost games. The simultaneity of things is of great concern to football these days.
The fourth wave of the corona pandemic is plowing through Germany with full force. 100,000 deaths since the outbreak almost two years ago, the number of infections increasing every day that hardly anyone could have chosen. New lockdowns in some federal states. For the unvaccinated, for everyone, for none. It’s complicated.
Of course, football is also affected by the increasing number of infections. It is hardly possible to understand which player is currently infected at which club and which of them is vaccinated or unvaccinated. Vaccination breakthroughs, vaccination skepis. In the end, it’s one thing: an infection. The clubs report new cases and new quarantine orders every day. Almost every day, changed corona protection regulations create new requirements for visiting the stadium. And almost every day there was an update on Joshua Kimmich, the most famous unvaccinated person in the country. During the week during his second quarantine, he tested positive for the corona virus as a contact person.
“Well deserved,” some grumble, “thinks of Enke”, warn others that the extent of a depression is nowhere near comprehensive and certainly those who made the national team a symbol of their resistance have a wild theory about the infection of the midfield star from Bavaria Munich, which has gone from being a role model to a highly controversial person within a few weeks. In sporting terms, his absence tears a hole in the record champions’ squad, whose leadership is visibly overwhelmed by the vaccination issue that suddenly arises and the communication of the milestones – notification of the non-vaccination, no salary in quarantine and the positive test – has left the tabloid media .
Trust permanently destroyed
The Bundesliga club seems unprepared for the vaccination debate, it has evidently swept the subject under the carpet again and again and hoped that it would somehow go well. A deceptive assumption and as quick to act as large parts of German politics on the slowly rolling waves of infection of the pandemic. Nothing went well. The record champions, the international figurehead of German football, is swept away by the wave and is in one of the epicentres of an escalating debate about a possible vaccination requirement. It is also about the question of how to deal with people who, for whatever reason, oppose a vaccination and thus, so the argumentation of some, oppose the general public.
Unintentionally, but certainly not innocently, football is once again in the role of a populist lightning rod in uncertain, fearful times. In the course of the pandemic, he has slipped into this role several times, tried to take it off with hygiene papers, the introduction of a general test obligation as early as May 2020 and many initiatives. Football doesn’t really want to succeed. Precisely because cases like the Kimmich case, who was one of the flagships with his “We Kick Corona” initiative, permanently destroy trust. The individual case seems larger than the great mass. It’s complicated. Hardly anyone gives a good picture.
Because the former coach of second division Werder Bremen, Markus Anfang, was allegedly on the road with a fake vaccination certificate, with his behavior driving the absurdity, but also the distrust of the players in football to new heights, not even Kimmich’s positive PCR test remains suspicious . Behind the hand, only half-joking slogans are mixed in with the malice. The test was faked, they heard, because this way the national player bypasses a vaccination and falls under the 2G rule after the end of his isolation. A perfidious plan. Obviously false, outlandish accusations. But what is wrong in these weeks?
Compulsory vaccination through the back door?
In these weeks when politicians are also using football as a playground for their populism. Last week, the new Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, Hendrik Wüst, enjoyed basking in his proposal to introduce mandatory vaccination for football professionals. It fits in with the times, is a successful service in the media. A few days later, this mandatory vaccination appears in the version of the NRW Corona Protection Ordinance that came into force this week. It is introduced through the back door. After a transition period with PCR tests, the players on the field should only be allowed to compete under 2G conditions in the future.
However, the duration of the transition period is not defined in more detail in the regulation. In response to a request from ntv.de, the state’s Ministry of Health announced: “The end of the transition period should be set nationwide as uniformly and at very short notice”, but previously restricted: “To enable these athletes to obtain full vaccination protection without necessarily having to To be excluded from competitions, league games, etc. that are important for you or your team, you can temporarily continue training and competition with a PCR test. ” In any case, NRW is striving to “reach an understanding”. So hot air.
Just like the very popular and curious mixture of some prejudices against football. “The unpaid salary of a Kimmich quarantine is the equivalent of about 23 years in nursing,” tweeted the “Today Show” author Thomas Poppe this week and cleared it up. Over 31,000 likes, more than 4000 retweets. Corona, absurdly high salaries, the shortage of care, the vaccination debate condensed in a few words. Incoherent. But capable of a majority. The fact that the salaries, however high they may be, are not the cause of Kimmich’s skepticism about vaccinations, that football can do nothing at all for the care emergency, none of this is relevant. It’s populism. But also a sign of how much credit the sport has lost in recent years.
“The situation is getting more difficult”
This can also be clearly seen in the arduous return of the spectators to the stadiums, who were no longer convinced of their sport even before the fourth wave began. The years before the pandemic had already stolen the soul from the stadium experience, the dissatisfaction was too great.
“If trees keep disappearing from a forest, you don’t notice it. But at some point half the forest is gone. And then it’s not so nice anymore,” says filmmaker Marc Quambusch in an interview with ntv.de: “You can’t have a system always just take something. ” Quambusch, who together with some fellow campaigners in the mid-10s Borussia Dortmund and also football with the docu-drama “Born on Borsigplatz – Franz Jacobi and the cradle of BVB” erected a monument, is annoyed by the VAR, by the lack of competition in the Bundesliga, the nuisance of the fans and a little also from the standstill of his favorite club. “The clubs have bred customers and they are now saying: I’ll pick out the highlights. But the product, because that’s the language that is used now, is no longer good enough.”
Fan researcher Harald Lange from the University of Würzburg also confirms this view. “The situation is getting more difficult again,” he says in an interview with ntv.de when asked about a renewed exclusion of viewers. The German Football League (DFL) does not want to hear anything about it yet, but the force of the fourth wave has long been reducing the number of spectators in some federal states, and in Saxony even for new ghost games. Lange speaks about the protest culture that has existed within the fan scene for over a decade. The Ultras had protested against everything: Against admission prices that were too high, against security papers from the interior authorities, against investors, against the escalating commerce and the increasing lack of conscience on the part of those involved in the booming football sector. “This protest movement found a response in the middle of society. Football arrived there by 2006 at the latest, and with a delay now the protests too,” says the fan researcher. “The pandemic acted like a catalyst.”
The case of Qatar
But Lange also sees an opportunity in the game’s crisis. “Those actors are now getting a tailwind who were in favor of reforms that recharge the product with different values, and want to anchor it in society.” How complicated this will be, however, shows a look at the record champions, who are facing a complicated annual general meeting not only because of Joshua Kimmich. Qatar is on the agenda. Or not.
For weeks, an initiative by Bayern fans has been trying to force the controversial advertising contract between FC Bayern AG and Qatar Airways to expire at the club’s annual general meeting. But at first the examination of the application by the record champions took too long, then the Munich district court rejected an injunction from the applicant and shortly before the meeting the regional court also rejected a complaint early on Thursday. The topic could still be discussed at the annual general meeting, also in the form of a spontaneous proposal, but the worst danger seems to have been averted for the time being. However, Qatar will remain another major point of contention in football for at least the next twelve months. Then the world championship will be held in the desert state.
A lot will happen until then. In the pandemic, in politics, and maybe even back in the stadiums. Kimmich will return to the field after his infection will hopefully soon be over. And at some point the fourth wave will end. Then it will be a matter of sport finally filling its countless image campaigns with life again. Troubled times. All over.