Saturday, November 27th, 2021
DFL rejects claims
Bundesliga discusses season break
In spring 2020, the Bundesliga will interrupt the season due to the corona pandemic. This step is now called for again due to the increasing number of infections – but the German Football League does not think this is a good idea. However, the different local rules make things strange.
A sold out house at the Rhenish derby between 1. FC Cologne and Borussia Mönchengladbach, empty seats in Leipzig – and the first calls from politics for a suspension of Bundesliga play. The worsening corona crisis in Germany is also affecting professional football with full force again and is increasingly causing unequal conditions at the 36 locations.
Bremen’s Senator for the Interior, Ulrich Mäurer, even demanded an interruption of the season due to the rapidly increasing corona numbers. “We expose the police officers to an unnecessarily great danger if we send them across the country in the middle of the fourth wave just to secure football games against violent fans,” said the SPD politician. From his point of view, this is no longer justifiable.
Before the interior ministers’ conference at the beginning of December, Mäurer called on his colleagues to act. “It is high time that the German Football League interrupted the game,” said Mäurer. The DFL had rejected this request, which Aues President Helge Leonhardt had previously put forward, last Wednesday. In a statement, the umbrella organization referred to the “coordinated line of all 36 clubs” to always act on the basis of state guidelines in the corona pandemic. “A self-imposed, area-wide lockdown in the sense of a season break is therefore not an issue,” it said.
Permission for Cologne, restriction in Bochum
A uniform health policy line in the federal states is currently not discernible – and also difficult to imagine. While a Bundesliga ghost game will take place against Bayer Leverkusen on Sunday for the first time in months in Leipzig, 50,000 fans will be able to watch the derby against Gladbach in Cologne on Saturday. A corresponding application by the association was approved by the Cologne health department on Friday. “This is possible due to the successfully practiced hygiene and infection protection concept with 2G, which is classified as viable,” said FC managing director Alexander Wehrle.
Nevertheless, the promise comes as a surprise, because after the new corona protection ordinance of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia that came into force this week, the Cologne-based people should have actually reduced the number of spectators – even if only by 1500 in the standing area. The Cologne health department justified its decision to use full capacity with the fact that there were no higher numbers of cases than the general infection rate at previous home games of the FC. One is not quite as generous in Bochum, around 80 kilometers away, where the newcomer has to leave 6000 of the 12,000 standing places free.
The league also offers a patchwork quilt in dealing with Corona. In Frankfurt 40,000 spectators are allowed against 1. FC Union Berlin, which corresponds to a utilization of the stadium capacity of almost 80 percent. The Bavarian clubs from Munich, Fürth and Augsburg, on the other hand, are currently only allowed to use 25 percent of their stadiums. In Wolfsburg and Berlin it is 50 percent. 25,000 fans were allowed to play VfB Stuttgart against FSV Mainz 05 on Friday evening – a good 40 percent of the stadium’s capacity.
Mäurer asked his counterparts from the federal states in a letter in advance of the conference of interior ministers for advice and a coherent approach in order not to unnecessarily promote the pandemic. “We have to press the DFL to interrupt the game immediately or at least to start only with ghost games.”