Germany’s Bundesliga to return May 16 with plenty of precautions, but no fans
LONDON — The eyes of the soccer world will be on Germany on Saturday, May 16.
After weeks of planning and nervous negotiations, the Bundesliga has finally been cleared to return, the first of soccer’s major leagues to try to mount a comeback from coronavirus-induced global sporting stoppage.
There is certain to be outsized interest in the games from both soccer fans, who have been left with precious little to watch, and sporting officials, who are hoping the German experiment will prove that games can be played safely in the face of a pandemic.
For true diehards, there have been games to watch — leagues in Belarus, Burundi, Nicaragua and Tajikistan have played on, for instance — but the Bundesliga’s return May 16 will offer a glimpse of what top-level sport will look like in these unusual times.
Chancellor Angela Merkel gave the league the go-ahead to resume play, and the games will be the first test of a detailed set of safety protocols the Bundesliga has put in place.
The success or failure of the German model may determine the fates of other sports leagues and major events that have been left in limbo worldwide.
The league’s management hustled to set the schedule as soon as approval was granted for the games to start in the middle of May, part of a wider announcement about easing nationwide restrictions.
By Wednesday night, after training for a month, the 18 clubs in Germany’s top division received letters informing them when things would start.
The names on the field may be recognizable, but the same cannot be said for just about anything else related to the match. Each team will be quarantined together in a hotel before the first round of games, and players will be tested for the virus.
As the season goes on, the players will be tested at least twice a week until the matches are completed.
The games will then be played at empty stadiums, or as “ghost games” as they are referred to in German, a situation that Christian Seifert, the Bundesliga chief executive, acknowledged was not ideal.
“In a crisis threatening the very existence of some clubs, however, it is the only way to keep the leagues in their current form,” Seifert said.