Union boss warns of too early Bundesliga restart; May 9 eyed

Berlin (dpa) – Union Berlin president Dirk Zingler has warned of a premature resumption of Bundesliga action as officials reportedly eye May 9 as a possible restart day.

Zingler, in an interview broadcast on the club website on Friday, said that “if we disconnect ourselves from social perception, we are not doing ourselves a favour.”

German football has been suspended since mid-March because of the coronavirus pandemic, at least until April 30. The government has imposed major restrictions which are in place until at least April 19.

There is speculation these national restrictions may be slowly eased in the following weeks, but Zingler insisted that footballers should not be the first to benefit.

“We should find a date that has social acceptance,” he said. “The children should first go to school. And maybe the little pub with 20 seats should open again as well before we play football.”

The Bild paper said on its website that German Football Federation (DFB) officials agreed during a video conference Thursday that a May 9 restart was likelier than getting the ball rolling again a week earlier, on May 2.

The DFB conference was about the third division but Bild quoted a spokesman as saying that DFB is following plans of the German Football League (DFL) which runs the Bundesliga and second tier.

The spokesman however said that “these are only business games that depend on many external factors.”

Resumption of play, with nine rounds left in the Bundesliga season, depends on permission from health and state authorities.

Clubs hope to complete the season by the end of June but Zingler said that may not happen and that play could run into August. Games are to be played behind closed doors and the season completed in that way in order to minimise losses as an abandoning of the season would likely see several clubs having to file for bankruptcy.

But matches without fans would require frequent testing of players, prompting fans from top flight side Fortuna Dusseldorf to warn that testing of people in the country carrying out essential jobs should have priority because labs were overwhelmed.

While Zingler insisted the restart required “a high level of social acceptance” he also said clubs had no choice but to play again, for financial reasons.

“We need football, unfortunately we also need the ‘ghost games’ because we have an enormous amount of responsibility for our employees, and contractual obligations as well. We can only meet these if we also have income from central marketing,” he said.