About two weeks ago, the mood was already a bit like saying goodbye, but that was almost a bit lost in the debates about vaccinating footballers and the surprise about the result. When FC Augsburg defeated FC Bayern 2-1 on a Friday evening, 26,000 spectators watched. The 2-G rule and mask requirement applied, but the atmosphere in the stadium was so festive that Augsburg coach Markus Weinzierl called it a “holiday”. “Oh, how nice is that,” the fans sang.
Now on Tuesday it was the Bavarian Bundesliga clubs Munich, Augsburg and Greuther Fürth who were the first to know what to expect due to the fourth wave of the pandemic. After the end of a telephone federal-state corona conference, Saxony’s Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer (CDU) said: “One can assume that the Bundesliga should continue to play without a spectator. That is the right decision.” Nationwide resolutions have not yet been passed, but could follow this week. NRW Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst (CDU) had previously announced a drastic reduction in the number of spectators allowed, which would affect the game between Borussia Dortmund and FC Bayern at the weekend.
In Bavaria, however, it is already becoming concrete: “We want to propose the following: By the end of the year you should definitely get by without spectators in the professional leagues,” said Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU). “We’re trying to do it all over Germany again, but we’d go it alone in Bavaria.”
In Munich, where 75,000 people were admitted to the stadium for the first time since March 2020, restrictions were already in place last weekend. Only 12,000 came against Bielefeld – and thus significantly less than the permitted 25 percent of the capacity.
In Saxony, the state with the highest seven-day incidence, spectators were already completely banned, as the first first division club RB Leipzig had a ghost game again on Sunday. The greatest excitement and polyphonic criticism came at the weekend, however, because 50,000 spectators in Cologne saw the derby against Mönchengladbach. The health department is now checking fines for spectators who did not wear a mask.
How the problems could escalate can be seen at northern clubs
With the news of the threat of games without fans, it is now again about possible economic consequences for the clubs. “Ghost games are really dramatic for us,” said CEO Thomas Hitzlsperger for VfB Stuttgart. Of course, the financial consequences vary depending on the location. FC Bayern just presented a profit of 1.9 million euros at its annual general meeting despite the pandemic. In Augsburg and Fürth the losses remained below one million. Fürth’s managing director Holger Schwiewagner recently said that the company reacted to “extraordinary burdens with clever concepts, but also with savings”, with a reduced budget and a reduced management team.
In many places there has recently been talk of rather cautious bills. “We calculated conservatively, but with increasing audience numbers for the rest of the season,” said Ingo Schiller, managing director of Hertha BSC, the SZ. “Before the season we made a careful calculation with a 60 percent capacity utilization. If we can’t increase that, we will again incur losses of around 30 million euros,” said Eintracht Frankfurt’s board member Oliver Frankenbach in October.
How the problems can escalate is exemplified by a look to the north, to the second division clubs Hamburger SV and Werder Bremen. Both clubs have big stadiums and loyal supporters, so they will be hit harder by the Corona crisis. It’s a fateful combination: potentially a lot of people in the stands, but significantly less TV income in the second division.
In September HSV received ten million euros in bridging aid from the federal government, the prerequisite for this was a decline in sales of at least 30 percent. But things got much worse for the Hamburgers: Sales slumped in the Corona crisis from 120 million to a little more than 50 million euros. In the current season, the club is now calculating with 33,000 spectators per game instead of the average of 48,000 people who came before the pandemic. In each of the last two home games, a Hamburg record was broken. In the last two home games this year, against Hansa Rostock and Schalke 04, the stadium was expected to be almost fully occupied.
Things are a little different at SV Werder: CFO Klaus Filbry recently said that the season was “completely financed” even in a ghost game scenario. Without giving an exact calculation, he emphasized that the cost screw had been turned in order to be able to compensate for any losses. Bremen’s financial situation does not look rosy by any means: During the pandemic, a record minus was posted, the largest holes were only barely filled with a state guarantee and a fan bond.
Nevertheless, SV Werder had voluntarily agreed to forego some spectators at the last home game of the year against Erzgebirge Aue even before the decision was made by politicians. Instead of the potentially 42,000 spectators, only around 30,000 are allowed to come to the Weserstadion this Friday, a decrease of 25 percent. Werder President Hubertus Hess-Grunewald said that Weser courier“It is not about earning every penny, we also want to live up to our social responsibility”.