Thursday, November 18, 2021
Pressure on Kimmich and Co.
Prime ministers want 2G rule for football professionals
According to the North Rhine-Westphalian Prime Minister Wüst, the heads of government of the federal states agree that the 2G rule should also apply to sports professionals in the future. This means that the Bundesliga has to face tricky debates, such as Bayern Munich and its national players who are skeptical of vaccinations.
In the afternoon, the Bund-Länder-Round not only met uniform threshold values for a nationwide introduction of the 2G rule. It should also be applied to professional sport, as North Rhine-Westphalia’s Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst said after the Prime Minister’s Conference. The country leaders agreed “very quickly that if 2G viewers have to consider that this should also apply to the professionals,” said the CDU politician in the presence of Chancellor Angela Merkel and her likely successor in office, Olaf Scholz. “That was the unanimous opinion of the prime ministers,” said Wüst. The legal feasibility is now being checked.
When journalists asked, Chancellor Merkel was still unsure of what should apply to professional athletes in the future. “Usually the world of work is 3G and not 2G is imposed there,” said Merkel. “2G applies to everything that is not the world of work,” she said, referring to the 2G rule agreed on Thursday, which is to apply in all countries where the hospitalization index exceeds 3.
“Now it depends on whether it is the world of work or the world of leisure,” said Merkel about professional sport, before her Wüst came to help with explanations. Apparently the prime ministers of the federal states are planning a special rule for professional sport if necessary. The Bundestag decided on Thursday to introduce a 3G rule for workplaces as part of the amended Infection Protection Act.
For weeks, the country has been debating how athletes should deal with the corona vaccination, especially since Joshua Kimmich from FC Bayern Munich made his vaccination-skeptical attitude public. The national player is just as unvaccinated as his Munich team-mates Jamal Musiala, Serge Gnabry and Eric-Maxim Choupo-Moting and had expressed “concerns” about a vaccination that had been refuted by science live on TV. In the Bundesliga, around ten percent of the players are said to have not yet been vaccinated. Today, Thursday, according to information from the “Bild” doctors, a letter is to be sent under the heading “Let yourself be vaccinated!” sent to the 36 professional teams of the 1st and 2nd Bundesliga.
How do Kimmich and Co. decide?
DFL boss Christian Seifert said on Tuesday to “Bild” regarding considerations on the compulsory vaccination of footballers: “We have heard enough ideas in the past twelve months. In the current, undoubtedly difficult pandemic situation, it must be the task of politics to follow suit to look for practicable solutions and feasible concepts “. If politicians create the legal options for compulsory vaccination, the DFL would “of course immediately and intensively discuss such an option”. This now seems a done deal.
There had been positive corona cases at FC Bayern again and again. After a positive test with the vaccinated Niklas Süle, the defender and his four DFB teammates Kimmich, Gnabry, Musiala and Karim Adeyemi from Salzburg had to leave the team quarters before the World Cup qualifiers against Liechtenstein and in Armenia. Bayern coach Julian Nagelsmann was also recently infected.
A debate about compulsory vaccination for professional athletes is also affecting other leagues abroad, such as the US basketball league NBA. Teams like the Brooklyn Nets have been scrapping their players since the start of the season if they are not vaccinated. Star point guard Kyrie Irving, who is skeptical of vaccinations, has not been on the floor for a minute this season. Now Kimmich and Co. have to decide whether they want to play or stick to their decision against vaccinating – and possibly have to forego their salary.