German clubs fear big losses due to COVID-19
As a matter of fact, should the season not continue after April 2, the 36 professional teams in the first and second divisions in the Bundesliga would look at a potential loss of €750 million ($836 million)
BERLIN: In Germany’s favourite sport, the saying goes that a football club just needs to switch on the stadium lights and thousands will come to see what’s happening there.
Even in the trying times of the coronavirus outbreak, the saying was proved right, as the last regular game showed.
As the referee blew the kick-off whistle for Mönchengladbach versus Cologne — a match decreed to be held behind closed doors due to coronavirus fears — hundreds if not thousands of fans had gathered outside the stadium to cheer on their teams.
The happening was far from ideal to slow the spread of the novel pathogen.
It goes without saying that Germany’s professional football league (DFL) was forced to act, which it did on Friday (March 13) by pausing the regular Bundesliga season for at least two matchdays until April 2.
Runaway costs and lost revenue
Christoph Breuer, a professor of sports business and management at the Sports College in Cologne, believes that DFL’s move will have far-reaching consequences for the clubs.
“Ticket sales are a key source of revenue for the clubs,” he told DW. “In addition to that, sponsorship money and income from television rights are threatened because clubs are bound by contracts to play their games.”
As a matter of fact, should the season not continue after April 2, the 36 professional teams in the first and second divisions in the Bundesliga would look at a potential loss of €750 million ($836 million).
The figure is a total of missing gate receipts, lost sponsorship money and outstanding television money. Just the TV money from the last nine games likely not to be played would hit the clubs’ bottom lines by €370 million. For a full season of 34 league games, they get a total of €1.4 billion.
The bosses of two clubs that stand to lose millions were among the most vocal. Borussia Dortmund’s CEO Hans-Joachim Watzke spoke of “the biggest crisis” in German football.
Before him, Bayern Munich’s CEO, Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, spoke in favor of continuing with the originally planned games behind closed doors on Matchday 26.
“If this money was absent, it would be expected that many smaller and mid-sized clubs would have financial problems,” Rummenigge said.
Will lights go out in lower leagues?
In Germany’s third and fourth division football, the situation looks even more dramatic, says Breuer.
Gate receipts there make up for a much bigger part of revenue than in the two top-flight divisions, and the clubs’ liquid positions have been much more strained for years.
Deep in the red
“Two out of three third-division clubs are already deep in the red, while in the first division all clubs are profitable,” he says
And further down the German football pecking order, lights could go out altogether, he warns.
Albert Ammermann is the deputy president of fifth-division club Kickers Emden, a club that’s already suffered from a series of postponed matches due to bad weather.
“Our club’s [financial] situation has never been rosy, we cannot cope with any loss of income from ticket sales,” he told DW.