Icon: enlarge
One of the venues for the Handball World Cup 2021: The New Captial Stadium in Cairo
Photo: SHOKRY HUSSIEN / REUTERS
The discussions about the Handball World Cup were like plucking the blossoms of a flower.
"She loves me, she doesn't love me ..." Translated: "This World Cup will be a disaster, everything will go well ..." Criticism of one participant in the implementation was followed by the defense of another, as if in an endless loop.
During the corona pandemic, the principle arose that we will know more in 14 days.
It is the same with the Handball World Cup.
Now this controversial world championship begins on Wednesday evening, it ends at the end of January and then you will know: Was it a disaster?
The omens are modest: hosts Egypt and Chile are opening the final round, which is now being played for the first time with 32 countries instead of the previous 24.
Even more people, more risk of infection.
Among them are 16 nations from the European association, plus the USA and Brazil, so enough countries in which the corona virus has particularly raged and is still raging.
And shortly before departure for Egypt, the US team complained about an extreme outbreak, 18 corona infections became known.
In Egypt, too, the number of new infections and fatalities has risen rapidly since mid-December.
Handball is an indoor sport and the risk of infection is higher in closed rooms.
At first, the organizer had planned in spectators.
But captains of European handball nations protested - and last Sunday the host and world association rejected the fan idea.
Many camps, different interests
The organizers want to prevent the big disaster with a security concept: Every 48 to 72 hours, professionals and other people involved in the tournament are tested for corona.
It is mandatory to wear a mask, if you do not have to play a game, train or eat, you have to isolate yourself in your single room.
Excursions outside the hotel walls are prohibited.
"I have a good feeling about this concept," said German World Cup driver Johannes Golla to SPIEGEL.
The test strategy is maintained by the epidemiologist Prof. Dr.
Markus Scholz from the University of Leipzig for sufficient.
He read and rated the twelve-page hygiene concept for SPIEGEL.
He also sees problems in this: »There could be infections before or during the flight on arrival.
This could result in entries in the bubbles despite a negative initial test. "
The organizer has reserved four hotels in Egypt, in which all teams as well as journalists and officials will be accommodated.
Scholz says: “The bubbles are relatively large, so that individual cases can have greater effects.
That means, if there are cases, further infections are likely. «The particularly affected US team is now moving into that bubble, and it is not yet clear whether there will be more cases in the team.
Scholz also warns of false negative test results.
Most recently, criticism of the hygiene concept came from Bundesliga representatives.
"The Cairo bubble is a joke," said the head of the supervisory board of HC Erlangen, Carsten Bissel, of the "Süddeutsche Zeitung".
Michael Roth, who was Bahrain's national coach for an international match in Egypt two months ago, also sharply criticized the World Cup hosts.
"It was a shambles," he said in the SPIEGEL interview.
Bob Hanning, Vice President of the German Handball Federation, last defended the organizer.
"I don't know where we get the arrogance that we can do all this better than other countries," the 52-year-old told the RBB.
"I find it very hard to keep saying something like that." Hanning defended the idea of the audience in the halls until the very end.
President taunts after World Cup cancellations
Actually, you could recently watch a rally between the Bundesliga and the national team.
One camp worries that the league cannot continue as planned due to rising corona numbers during the World Cup.
The other party wants to be visible and pursues financial interests: January is the month of the national handball team, then every year the World Cup or European Championship takes place and an audience of millions follows the German games.
And so everyone has ultimately become his own lobby group.
The players also form one, but even that is rather divided.
Some professionals have decided that they don't want to compete in Egypt because of the corona pandemic.
From the German squad, these are mainly the professionals from THW Kiel: Patrick Wiencek, Hendrik Pekeler and Steffen Weinhold.
Goalkeeper Andreas Wolff sees their cancellations "very, very critical".
Other international players will also be missing, but no one should have to do without as many key players as Germany.
"We are probably the most sensitive handball nation in the world," said DHB President Andreas Michelmann thereupon in "Sport Bild".
He can understand the motives and does not want to "denounce" anyone.
But the fact that professionals are dismissed as sensitive by the top handball boss because they fear for their own health and want to stay with their families is remarkable.
When asked by SPIEGEL, the trio from Kiel refused to comment.
The THW said that the players were on vacation after winning the Champions League and that the World Cup was ticked off for them.
The symbolic power of the World Cup
All the different points of view show how torn the handball family is at the moment.
The past few weeks have not been good for a sport that always tries to sell itself in a comradely and down-to-earth manner and thus also tries to differentiate itself from the elbow society of professional football.
Much is at stake in Egypt.
And with the handball world championship, the starting signal will sound in a sports year that is set to be a long one.
Many events that were canceled in the previous year are to be rescheduled in the next few months, including the mega-event European football championship in eleven European cities and the even larger Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo with athletes from all over the world.
The handball players in Egypt not only play for themselves, but also for everyone else who is still hoping for their event this year.
If the handball world championship turns out to be a disaster in 14 days, it will also have a certain symbolic power for all other major events.
Then the sporting year 2021 could be shorter than planned.
Icon: The mirror