“It is clear that this will not be a sure-fire success,” said Philipp Galewski, Managing Director of Brose Bamberg. Its opening win against Ulm – both semi-finalists from the previous year – saw only 150 fans in Weißenfels. The clubs obviously have to fight for every guest, the uncertainty seems to be unexpectedly great.
“As a club you are spoiled and expect to get the seats sold quickly. But those days are over,” said Galewski. “The fans are no longer used to coming into the hall. A lot of communication is required.” The handball Bundesliga teams had already had similar experiences. Bamberg itself recently had 1200 fans approved for a test match, but only sold a good half of the tickets.
In the opinion of his official colleague Martin Geissler from Weißenfels, communication is not only about clubs. “If the authorities and politics speak of an increased risk situation, I would also consider going to a major event,” said the 35-year-old. As a club you can show that you do everything for the safety of the audience and convince them that way.
So far, football has shown that sports events are not automatically superspreader events. “We already had over 200,000 spectators in the stadium and there are no known infections that can be traced back to this,” said Florian Kainzinger. He had already played a key role in developing the BBL’s hygiene and safety concept for the final tournament in Munich at the end of June.
Nevertheless, due to the number of infections, ghost games could already be pending again next weekend, when cup game days two and three are played. This was already the case this weekend at the cup tournaments in Bonn and Vechta.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 201018-99-986453 / 3
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