Exercise therapy: shaking your head

Rummenigge (left) and Hoeneß in pre-Corona times

Photo: 

Swen gatekeeper / dpa

The days are dreary and monotonous, boredom and worries about existence and health, plus winter weather, so that you hardly want to leave the house.

Perfect conditions for football to shine.

Actually.

When there is almost nothing going on, you can watch Bundesliga or cup games almost every day, plus international competitions.

But instead of making a living as a crisis helper, football ensured within a few days that you hardly had to worry about your own lack of exercise: you can hardly get out of shaking your head.

FC Bayern and its travel strains were partly responsible for this.

Here you can read the details of the incident, in essence it is about the fact that the people of Munich were a little too late to leave Berlin for Qatar on Friday evening and therefore had to spend the night at the airport.

It was “a scandal without end” for Uli Hoeneß, Karl-Heinz Rummenigge felt “ripped off” by politics, those responsible didn't even know what they “did to the team”.

One day after the farce about the Bayern plane, RB Leipzig was amazed.

The case is different, but it also illustrates the self-image of professional football.

Dribbling through the loophole

The Leipziger are in the round of 16 of the Champions League and now meet Jürgen Klopps FC Liverpool.

A big game - which, according to the UEFA statutes, is organized by RB as the host.

Liverpool, however, is not allowed to enter England from the mutation area, the request from Leipzig for an exception was rejected by the federal police.

Mutation area, federal police - actually no terms that invite you to dribble into legal loopholes.

At some point, hygiene concepts will reach their limits.

The Leipzig team have now taken a path approved by UEFA: They have moved the game to a neutral place, to Hungary.

The state of emergency has just been extended there, and conditions such as curfews and a ban on gatherings still apply.

Viktor Orbán's government has also issued emergency approvals for vaccines from Russia and China.

In other words: Hungary is not spared from Corona either.

Anyway, the main thing is to find a place where you can play.

Then quickly away again, it has to go on.

Football has found a proven way to keep its business model going while at the same time carrying a sense of responsibility.

For the first there are rules like the ones the Leipzigers have now adhered to.

The other are declarations of intent, guidelines, conventions - in other words: nice, non-binding specifications that are always tried when it is said that football has lost all reference to reality and is a terrible role model.

At Uefa, for example, in the preamble to the plan on how football can go on in times of Corona: “The players and all other participants should remember that their actions [...] are a strong symbol for the millions of viewers the whole world [serves].

Stakeholders in European football have a collective duty to take leadership and lead by example in the rigorous application of these policies. "

German football doesn't have to hide there, it can also do double standards.

Last week a task force presented a report on how the Bundesliga clubs could be brought to more »cost discipline« and »social responsibility«.

One of the goals that will be striven for for 2030 is literally: "The Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2 protect and respect human dignity based on the UN guidelines for business and human rights and ensure fair working conditions for their employees, including players and coaches."

Self-evident things are puffed up in front of them - if they are implemented at all.

Because these are of course only recommendations for action that should be discussed in the DFL Presidium.

Wait and see what's left of these goals ten years from now.

Icon: The mirror