Bundesliga may provide answers on restarting
Basketball and hockey arenas shuttered along with ballparks. Tennis and golf tournaments wiped out or postponed. Motor sport circuits silenced.
The spread of the coronavirus paused every major sport and left a hole in the lives of billions during two months of weekends without any live elite competition to watch — until now.
When the German Bundesliga lockdown ends on Saturday, a sense of normality will be restored with a very unusual feel. The sporting world and national leaders will be watching with as much trepidation as hope.
“The Bundesliga is going to be important,” Colombia President Iván Duque said. “It’ll be the benchmark.”
The first major European league to resume is about so much more than filling the void for social distancing soccer obsessives stuck on their sofas. If German clubs can safely play on during the pandemic, it would rouse competitions worldwide planning their own restarts following an unprecedented peacetime hiatus.
“The whole world is watching Germany to see how we do it,” Bayern Munich coach Hansi Flick said. “It can act as an example for all leagues. Then sport in general might be able to get going again. At the moment, it’s important to implement things exactly as required. We have a big role model function.”
The French league already abandoned its season prematurely on government orders, but England, Spain and Italy have the backing of authorities to plan on resuming in June.
“We can share solutions,” said Brighton manager Graham Potter, whose team is fighting for English Premier League survival, “because whether you’re in the Bundesliga or the Premier League, no one’s been through this before.”
Playing during a pandemic is a costly and rigorous business that requires a medical protective shield being placed around teams. Players, coaches and support staff will require regular coronavirus testing to swiftly detect infections. Stadiums and equipment will require disinfecting to ensure sports are not spreading a virus lacking a vaccine.
What all major sports will have to accept — from the Premier League to Formula One and Major League Baseball — is thousands of empty seats. Mass gatherings could be banned in countries into 2021.