Dhe soccer Bundesliga starts its third Corona season this weekend unusually quietly. At first glance, the reluctance seems like the soccer makers’ routine handling of uncertain times. In truth, however, the uncertainty about how the Bundesliga and German football will continue has probably never been greater than it has been in these days. The most popular public event in this country was never faced with as many unanswered questions as it did at the beginning of its 59th season: epidemiological, political, economic, sporting.
Since the outbreak of the pandemic around 18 months ago, the Bundesliga has always been an indicator of how society has dealt with this crisis. That should also apply to this season, a season full of question marks. In Cologne, only those who have been vaccinated and recovered will soon be allowed to cheer for their FC. Those who have been tested then have no chance there. FC Köln wants the G2 strategy, which is still being discussed in politics, to become the new normal in its stadium from the second home game on.
While the stadiums in London, Copenhagen or Budapest were filled to the brim two months ago at the European Championships, in view of the German Corona regulations no league manager dares to predict whether the fans will be allowed to flock to the stadiums en masse by the end of the season in May 2022 . But this is a question that is about nothing less than the business basis of the Bundesliga, both nationally and internationally.
Damage to German football
Lionel Messi’s recent transfer, which has received worldwide attention, has shown in an impressive way that the large, state-funded clubs like Paris Saint-Germain are now moving into spheres that no German club can penetrate. Even in the Premier League, in the middle of the Corona crisis, there is no hesitation in spending hundreds of millions on individual players.
The German record champions no longer deny the danger that even FC Bayern could be left behind internationally. Globalized football, which can no longer be stopped, is therefore likely to bring the topic of a European Super League back onto the agenda faster than the Bundesliga and many fans would like.
Overall, German football has suffered considerable damage in recent years. The sporting decline is mainly due to the national team, which has now dropped to 16th place in international competition, between Colombia and Sweden.
It is by no means certain whether the new national coach Hans-Dieter Flick will be able to meet the high hopes for a renaissance this season, which will be followed by the 2022 World Cup in Qatar just a few months later. In any case, the conditions at the German Football Association (DFB) are far less favorable than those that Flick found at Bayern Munich in autumn 2019 before he started his triumphal procession as the new number one. The German fans shouldn’t fool themselves: In the country of the four-time world champion, you will probably have to wait even longer to win the title.
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The DFB is also in a permanent crisis. After the resignation of the third president within a good five years, the world’s largest sports association has been largely disoriented since the spring. It is not possible to identify who will lead the football association in the future and with what goals. In March 2022, the sails for the future are to be set at a DFB Bundestag, but it is to be feared that this journey will lead further into the unknown.
The German Football League (DFL), which showed strength in the Corona crisis, is also facing a change. It is the last season under its managing director Christian Seifert, who has led the DFL out of the shadow of the DFB in 16 years. But Seifert did not make it or did not want a strong candidate to develop alongside him for the successor to lead.
Even FC Bayern Munich is no longer what it was for decades: the old Hoeneß club. After Karl-Heinz Rummenigge relinquished his post as CEO to Oliver Kahn in the summer, the German flagship club has to find itself anew at all levels, and possibly even reinvent itself.
In any case, the competition in Dortmund and Leipzig senses the chance that FC Bayern with President Herbert Hainer, CEO Kahn, sports director Hasan Salihamidzic and coach Julian Nagelsmann will not easily cement its exceptional position with the tenth championship title in a row. That would, at least in terms of the tension at the top of the Bundesliga table, finally be tingling news for football fans.
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