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Photo: Ole Spata / DPA
Germany's largest sports retailer association, the Intersport Group, is preparing for a difficult Christmas business with further closings - and is demanding financial support from the federal government that is coming into office.
"Should there be further closures and losses, we must also talk about new state aid for the retail trade," said Intersport manager Frank Geisler to SPIEGEL.
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He is responsible for the operational business of the group, which includes 900 dealers in this country with almost 1,500 locations and around three billion euros in sales, and fears shutdowns before the party.
"Anywhere where the situation gets a bit out of control," something like this could happen.
The trade is being taken into "kin liability", although the study situation clearly shows that there is only a low risk of infection in the shops, according to Geisler: "In fact, 2G already means a partial shutdown for us."
In the past two weeks alone, customer frequency at Intersport has plummeted by a third across Germany, and sales have fallen dramatically after a good summer and autumn.
"At the moment we are more than ten percent below the forecast sales." Until Christmas, you only drive in stores "on sight".
sbo
