Bundesliga boss says fans in stadia now unlikely before next season

January 19 – The German Bundesliga, a league renowned for its fan culture, doesn’t expect to see supporters return to stadiums until the 2021/22 season. 

In an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, Christian Seifert, who heads the Deutsche Fußball Liga (DFL), the governing body in charge of Germany’s top two leagues, indicated that fans will have to sit out the current season.

He said: “In any case (of a fan return), not in a significant number. If we had ruled out games without fans from the start as some people demanded, the system would have collapsed.”

“And no one at (the league) or the clubs wants to have games without fans either. However, we still have them because they are the only permitted option for hosting games, and presumably we will have them until the end of the season.”

Matches in all of Europe’s top five leagues are being staged behind closed doors because of the coronavirus pandemic with restrictions tightened again across Europe to combat a second wave of Covid-19.

In September and October, German fans were allowed to attend matches in person again although with stadium capacity limited to 20% at best, but that was a short-lived experiment as the arrival of winter came with increased circulation of the virus.

Germany has struggled to contain the second wave in recent weeks. The country closed schools, non-essential shops, bars and restaurants in early November, but those measures didn’t prevent the virus from gaining a strong foothold across the country. Germany has registered more than 2 million coronavirus cases to date and more than 47,000 deaths.

Contact the writer of this story, Samindra Kunti, at moc.l1711719224labto1711719224ofdlr1711719224owedi1711719224sni@o1711719224fni1711719224