Spotlight on football resumption

The German football league starts this weekend but with Covid-19 still a threat, many are questioning the timing of its recommencement.

THE email alert arrived in my inbox on Wednesday. It was from Astro indicating that “live” telecast of football matches would resume this weekend.

This resumption will not involve my favourite league – the English Premier League (EPL) – but I was overjoyed nonetheless. The lack of football, the world’s number one sport, for the last two months has been a torture for sports fans.

The Covid-19 pandemic has not only ensured half the world is in some form of lockdown, it has also shut down virtually all kinds of sporting activity.

Astro will be showing Bundesliga (German football league) matches this weekend and the Germans will become the first European league to restart matches this season.

Their league has been suspended since March 13 but now, the German Football Association said the season would resume under strict health protocols that ban fans from the stadium and require players to undergo Covid-19 testing.

About 300 people, including players, staff and officials, will be in or around the stadiums during match days. Players have been told not to spit, celebrate in groups, or touch hands with teammates, while some clubs will use music and cardboard cutouts of fans to enhance the atmosphere at matches.

This will make for a weird atmosphere at the grounds where games are played, but the Bundesliga estimates that more than a billion people will tune in for matches. You can be sure that large numbers of sports-starved Malaysians will be among the global audience this weekend.

But one has to wonder just why the German football authorities are desperate to get their league started. After all, Germany has some of the worst Covid-19 figures in Europe – around 175,000 confirmed cases with about 8,000 deaths.

Football is a close contact sport, so wouldn’t the resumption of matches when the battle against the pandemic is still raging, endanger the lives of players and matchday officials?

The answer is probably similar to the reason why the EPL has launched Project Restart – their quest to get the English league resumed by early June.

According to RTE, the Bundesliga is desperate to complete the season by June 30 for contractual reasons and is aware of the risk of another suspension if there are many positive Covid-19 cases among players. It has already warned of the “existence-threatening” financial situation of several clubs due to the suspension and has warned another interruption would be disastrous for both league and teams.

Clubs in Europe’s elite leagues have thrived on multi-million-dollar TV and sponsorship deals. This in turn has allowed the top clubs to pay exorbitant salaries for superstar players. Weekly wages of RM1mil and above is the norm for players plying their trade in England, Germany, France and Spain.

But the pandemic and the subsequent suspension threaten the entire structure of how clubs operate. The TV money will dry up, sponsors will pull out and with no paying fans coming through the turnstiles, matchday revenue will be lost.

That’s why the spotlight will be on the Bundesliga from tomorrow. It won’t only be Europe that’s watching because football officials in China, in the Middle East and even in Malaysia will be scrutinising how effective the quarantine and social distancing measures instituted by the Bundesliga will be.

The EPL will also use this as a reference point to push for its restart. But their planned kick-off on June 12 is looking increasingly unlikely because of disputes with clubs and players.

The police have also warned that despite spectator bans, groups of hardcore fans will congregate outside stadiums, nullifying social distancing measures.

Players, understandably, fear for their health and safety. Just like the Bundesliga, the EPL has only nine matches to finish the season, but not all 18 EPL clubs are in favour of restarting.

European football’s governing body Uefa has already indicated that the original deadline for leagues to restart, May 25, could be extended. It will very likely be extended, but various disputes within the English game threatens a complete void of the unfinished 2019/2020 season.

This will hit fans of the game hard because the EPL is the most popular league in the world but it will hit the supporters of Liverpool hardest of all, because the Reds were 25 points clear at the top of the table when the season was halted on March 13. They only need to win two of their remaining nine matches to be crowned champions, the first time in 30 long years.

Voiding the EPL would of course be the last option that the administrators would take but time is running out for a viable restart date. We should not forget that if and when domestic football is resumed, there is also the question of when the Uefa Champions League and Europa League can also continue.

Both tournaments were halted at the Round of 16 and some of Europe’s strongest teams like Manchester United, Inter Milan, Juventus, Atletico Madrid and PSG are all still in the competitions.

Ultimately, the resumption of European football will boil down to a question of whether economic considerations will triumph over health matters. This balance between livelihoods and lives is similar to the conundrum facing governments around the world, including Malaysia.

Lifting restrictions too soon may result in a second wave of the virus, but delaying the easing of restrictions will in turn create economic upheaval and cause untold misery.