Because visiting the stadium is less of a problem. This is what the aerosol researcher Gerhard Scheuch, who is often quoted by football, said, although he named arrival and departure, toilets and boxes as the most dangerous places in the Delta variant. Omikron spreads even faster.
When Heidel was supposed to talk about the consequences that a fifth wave in the new year could trigger in German professional football last Sunday (December 19, 2021), the 58-year-old frowned. A difficult topic. Before he thought about football, the first thing he would think about was people’s health. For example to his parents: “My dad is 89, mom will be 85. The second thing to consider is what that means for the club. If the worst prognoses come true, it will be difficult.”
The schedule hardly has any buffer
Nothing is out of the question: a break in the season like the one at the beginning of the pandemic does not seem unimaginable. The problem: All leagues would have immense scheduling problems with a longer break of several weeks. There would still be a bit of buffer for the national leagues in the summer if Uefa were to sacrifice their four Nations League dates in June, but nothing works after that because of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
The next 2022/23 season is hopelessly overloaded, so that the experiment with the desert World Cup can start in just under a year. And even if football often spoke of humility: Neither the national associations, nor Uefa or Fifa were willing to sacrifice any competition. Even the unimportant friendlies of the national teams, Supercups and World Cups were whipped through in order to fulfill the lucrative contracts.
There is a risk of new loss of income
For the Bundesliga clubs, the problem arises that the loss of income due to increased ghost games is actually not priced into the budget. Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, the former CEO of FC Bayern, already suspected on Monday on Bild-TV: “That will be a big challenge.”
The industry leader loses four to five million euros in every home game without a spectator. The remaining clubs, which do not have such a generous equity base, are hit harder. Almost wisely foresight, the league representatives had loosened the reins on licensing again at their latest general meeting.
Because ghost games tear a hole in the cash register. But what should other professional sports say, whose revenue structure depends even more on audience income? The 36 professional football clubs only collect every seventh euro from ticket sales on average. This should actually be manageable with appropriate cost-cutting measures.
DFL boss Christian Seifert knows the complex issue
The outgoing DFL managing director Christian Seifert knows about the complex issue and the many mines on this topic. In his farewell talk last Thursday, the DFL boss reminded that there was no know-how for the corona situation, but “In the end, the topic of dealing with major events must always be assessed in the context of a country’s overall pandemic strategy. And I have the impression that Germany has lost its clearly leading role at the beginning.”
Questionable decisions in logistics, management and communication would have led to a lack of understanding among many league representatives – including himself. Not only virologists, but also the opinion of psychologists, sociologists and economists should be heard about the corona consequences. Seifert warned urgently against “To treat a country with 80 million people like a virological calculation model.”