Dhe hefty 5-0 away defeat came as no surprise to Frankfurt Eintracht. After all, the Hessians have not won at Bayern Munich for 20 years. The club management did not expect that the following home game against Werder Bremen on Saturday (3:30 p.m. in the FAZ live ticker for the Bundesliga and Sky) would be a nuisance. On Monday, the club announced: “Eintracht Frankfurt’s home game on October 31 against Werder Bremen will most likely have to take place without spectators.”
The experiences in the first two Bundesliga matches in the home stadium were as good as they could be in Corona times. 6500 spectators watched the 1-1 draw against Arminia Bielefeld, and the thrilling 2-1 win over TSG Hoffenheim was followed by 8000 spectators in the stands. The response to the Eintracht hygiene concept and its implementation was consistently positive. And two weeks after the final whistle against Hoffenheim, proof of the effectiveness of the measures is also available: not a single case of infection with the Covid-19 virus was recorded during the stadium visit.
Unofficial signals
Nevertheless, Eintracht assumes that they will have to face Werder without an audience. However, it is not as if Eintracht had a decision from the city of Frankfurt on their application submitted last week to play against Bremen in front of 8,000 spectators. It has only received unofficial signals. For Eintracht board member Axel Hellmann, this uncertainty is a dilemma: “We need a decision from politics. A Bundesliga game has to be prepared and organized, which is even more time-consuming and complicated in Corona times. Keywords: ticketing, catering and security. It can’t be that we don’t have any planning security five days before kick-off. ”Hellmann emphasizes that he doesn’t ask the city to let spectators into the stadium. “If the bodies come to the conclusion that it is currently too dangerous to host Bundesliga matches in Frankfurt, then so be it. But not to decide at all … “
Health director Stefan Majer (The Greens) shows understanding for the impatience of Eintracht, but refers to the “situation that is worsening almost every hour. We are forced to review issues that would have been assessed quite differently a week ago. The harmony must be embedded in the fundamental conceptions of the administrative staff of the city of Frankfurt. ”In this body, which is headed by Majer, all corona-relevant information is processed in order to interlink the work of the relevant institutions. However, forming an opinion is not that easy.
Determined fight against Corona
“There is no uniform picture in the coalition, so the decision was postponed, it is expected that it will be made this Tuesday,” said Majer. For the Eintracht board of directors, however, the decision seems to have already been made: “After all the signals we receive from politics, we have to reckon with the fact that the game will have to take place in front of empty ranks,” said Hellmann, and he added: “We we all agree that the fight against the pandemic must be resolute and consistent, but also targeted and appropriate. That is why we consider the practice of excluding spectators, not only in professional football, to be the wrong and no longer proportionate approach. “
Hellmann continues: “The health department in particular is convinced that attending an Eintracht Frankfurt home game does not pose a risk of infection beyond the normal everyday risk due to our hygiene concept – on the contrary, the opposite is the case. These concepts were developed precisely for phases as we are now experiencing, and not for a purely theoretical or statistically almost impossible risk of infection, ”continued Hellmann. The Eintracht board of directors emphasizes that it is not a question of finances: the effort for a Bundesliga game only starts to pay off with an audience of 10,000 or more.
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