Germany Prepares for Soccer’s Return

In working out a plan, the Bundesliga estimates that 240 people, including players, coaching and medical staff, match officials and production staff will be needed for each game. Two groups have been set up to deal with the practicalities of staging the game: one to set up uniform game day regulations and the other, perhaps more important, to devise a hygiene plan for training and games and to work out what measures to take if a player tests positive.

“The concept is to give certainty to players, to their families and to society as well,” Seifert said.

The virus has created havoc with the global soccer calendar. Europe and South America’s national team championships have been postponed by a year to allow domestic seasons extra time to finish. Seifert said finishing the German season as early as possible would also benefit UEFA’s efforts to complete its two competitions, the Champions League and the Europa League. Aleksander Ceferin, the UEFA president, said recently that those tournaments could not take place beyond August. The club season had been set to end in June.

“The sooner we are finished, the more flexibility we can provide to the European football landscape,” Seifert said.

The rush to return to the field is also borne of a financial necessity as much as an emotional one.

While its clubs are some of the healthiest in Europe, not finishing the season would lead to an enormous cost. Seifert put the figure at as much as 750 million euros, or about $816.5 million, a figure that compares to forecasts of one billion euros of losses in Spain’s top division, La Liga, and a minimum of one billion pounds, or about $1.24 billion, for the Premier League.

“For the moment, we are all fighting to survive,” said Seifert, predicting that 50 percent of the second-division teams were “very much in danger to file for bankruptcy,” if the season were canceled, while as many as five top-division teams would face serious problems, too.

Top-tier teams are certain to lose nearly 100 million euros from the absence of supporters, while the final, 300-million-euro installment has yet to be paid by domestic rights owners, the biggest of which is Comcast-owned Sky.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/08/sports/germany-soccer-coronavirus.html