And while the Premier League is weighing between rescheduling football matches and losing money over TV deals, the Germans are one step ahead: they are banning football fans yet again from the football ground. Unlike English, who are predominantly without a vaccine, and are paying for it, with 90 players positive for Covid (a new Premier League record), German footballers are vaccinated in over 90% of cases. So, they are not canceling the matches, but they want to protect their fans, since the new Covid variant (omicron) is spreading much faster than the current one (delta). And today, the politicians took the matter in their own hands, and banned football fans, as well as other ordinary people from attending public events.🚨🚨 BREAKING: German politicians have decided that the Bundesliga and all sporting events will be played behind closed doors from December 28.(Source: @GGFN_)— Transfer News Live (@DeadlineDayLive) December 21, 2021 The Bundesliga ban will take effect on December 28th, but it won’t mean much, since the league is already on ‘winter holiday’ and the first game will be played on January 7th 2022. Still, new German chancellor Olaf Scholz announced that the ban will include all large events, which includes football stadiums.”Large events are no longer allowed to take place with an audience, this applies in particular to football matches” said Olaf Scholz.It has not yet been announced how long the ban will last, but it’ almost certain that the first match, scheduled for January 7th between Bayern Munich and Borussia Monchengladbach will be played behind closed doors. Cologne’s managing director Alexander Wehrle also emphasizes that no hotspots have been created by outdoor events, which has also been confirmed by the health department. “The stability of the health system is paramount, but that is not good news for professional sport that we now have to experience ghost games again. For Cologne that means a loss of 1.8 million euros in sales per game” said Wehrle.War of the worlds in Bundesliga: Fan-built Union and corporate wet dream RB Leipzig clash in East BerlinAt the beginning of this month, the federal government already decided to allow only 15,000 spectators in the German football stadiums. Supporters were also required to wear a face mask. Also, the 2G measure was in effect everywhere, meaning only vaccines or spectators who have recently recovered from coronavirus were welcome. However, some federal states decided to take stricter measures because of the rising corona figures, and Bavaria was one of them, since Bayern Munich has been playing its home games in an empty Allianz Arena since early December. By doing so, the Germans are in line with only Netherlands and Scotland, who also banned their supporters from attending matches.
