Fans tuning in to watch Barcelona against Bayern Munich in the Champions League will have a sense of Deja Vu with the game being played behind closed doors due to the Covid pandemic.

It will be the same for Man City travelling to Leipzig, as German states tighten restrictions.

Lat Thursday Germany recorded 73,000 Covid cases and 390 deaths, the highest numbers since early March. Restrictions of 50 per cent capacity or 15,000 fans, whichever was the highest have been introduced nationally but Bavaria and Saxony where the two games are to be played have imposed a full lockdown on mass gatherings.

Admission to German stadia had already been dependent on vaccination while travel restrictions have also caused a drop in the potential number of fans that might have been travelling.

The Champions League was one of the first sporting casualties of March 2020 when games were originally forced to be played behind closed doors during the week of St Patrick’s Day and then were called off altogether.

The tournament was eventually completed in the summer in a shortened format in Portugal.

We thought those days would only impact on a single year but here we are 635 days after Leo Varadkar’s speech from Blair House in Washington, still talking about empty stadiums and still implementing Plan’s B, C and beyond on gatherings of any kind.

No restrictions on outdoor sporting events have been imposed here or in Northern Ireland or Britain, meaning that the matches taking place in this weekend’s and the week after’s Heineken Champions Cup will still go ahead in full stadia.

Fans travelling to Britain or France though will require a professionally administered PCR or Antigen test before returning from any games they attend, as will players and backroom teams.

 

Sport for Business Perspective

We just have to listen to the science and conduct our own personal risk assessments so that the virus remains contained as best as we can. It is likely that some form of restrictions and health measures will be in place for a long time yet.
The evidence of managing games well at full stadia in the last few weeks will stand sport in good stead when future decisions might be made, though we must also accept that we do not live in a bubble and the German decisions are a worry.

 

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