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Bayern professional Joshua Kimmich: When the vaccination status becomes a threat to athletic success

2021-11-18T19:45:57.261Z


No corona vaccination, a possibly infected contact: Joshua Kimmich is threatened with quarantine again. The possible failures of unvaccinated professionals could also put FC Bayern in a sporting position.


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Joshua Kimmich could miss the upcoming games due to his vaccination status

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IMAGO / MIS

After a quarter of an hour, Julian Nagelsmann looked relieved. "It's good that we also talk about football," said the FC Bayern coach at the virtual media round on Thursday, when a reporter asked the first sporting question about FC Augsburg, the opponents of FC Bayern this Friday evening (8.30 p.m., stream : DAZN, live ticker: SPIEGEL.de). Until then, it had been about one topic almost all the time: The corona pandemic in general and Joshua Kimmich in particular. "A topic that annoys everyone," Nagelsmann confessed, slightly acidified. And a subject that could lead the club into a sporting dilemma in the coming weeks and months. Because for FC Bayern Joshua Kimmich, like all other unvaccinated players, is gradually becoming a problem.

Apart from the collective total failure at the 0: 5 cup debacle in Gladbach, things have been very good for the record champions in the three months since the start of the season. In the league, the club leads the table by four points, in the Champions League they are already qualified for the round of 16 before the final two match days of the group stage. In addition, the team under their new coach Nagelsmann inspires with an attractive offensive game, which are excellent prerequisites for the best atmosphere. But for almost four weeks, when Joshua Kimmich declared after the 4-0 win against Hoffenheim that he had not yet been vaccinated, the debate about the national player's immunization status has clouded the euphoria.

After Niklas Süle's positive Covid 19 finding shortly after arriving for the national team on November 8, Kimmich had to be quarantined at home, as were the three other Bayern players Serge Gnabry, Jamal Musiala and Eric-Maxim Choupo-Moting. None of this trio have so far commented on their personal vaccination status.

After a negative PCR test on Monday, Gnabry and Musiala returned to Säbener Straße on Tuesday, while Choupo-Mouting traveled to the Cameroon national team. Kimmich was still absent on Tuesday because of what was said to be a private appointment, and trained again on Wednesday - only to inevitably stop on Thursday because of contact with a corona suspect. Even if the contact person's PCR test turns out negative and Kimmich could still travel with him to the game in Augsburg, there are many indications that Bayern will have a long-term problem.

In view of the current dynamics of the fourth wave with new record numbers of infections and incidences every day, the probability that those professionals who have so far refused to take the Piks are increasingly threatened with quarantine - and thus fail for the club - increases in purely statistical terms.

Athletic weakness without any need

While the Kimmich vaccination case was initially primarily about his moral role model function as the initiator of the “We kick Corona” aid campaign, the debate is now shifting to a sporting level for the club. At a game in Augsburg, Bayern may be able to compensate for a loss of Kimmich. But how does it look in three months, when the first legs of the last sixteen are in the Champions League - in the middle of February, when the long Corona winter may still not be over? Can FC Bayern then afford to do without Kimmich and other top performers just because they persistently resisted a vaccination? Does the club even risk success in the Champions League in the end? And do those responsible now have to change course out of their own sporting interest?

So far, the club superiors have dealt with it relatively relaxed.

One can only make recommendations and, due to the general lack of compulsory vaccinations, nobody can be forced to do so, so far the tenor of President Herbert Hainer, CEO Oliver Kahn and Sports Director Hasan Salihamidžić.

But what if the forced failures become chronic?

Are the bosses pulling the reins now?

Could the unvaccinated players even face sanctions?

The consequences could be more serious

In US professional sport, for example, vaccination refusals are now looking for money.

In the NBA, for example, a contract between the league and the union stipulated that unvaccinated players lose their right to payment.

The vaccine opponent Kyrie Irving, who was banned from playing by his club Brooklyn Nets at the beginning of the season, lost income of the equivalent of more than five million euros in the first 16 games of the season, according to projections by the US media.

It is also open whether and how the unvaccinated can travel to away games in the future.

In Augsburg - after his contact person's PCR test was negative - Kimmich can now check into the team hotel despite 2G, since according to the Bavarian Infection Protection Ordinance it is a "mandatory and urgent non-tourist accommodation stay".

But what about trips to other federal states where, following the decision of the Prime Minister's Conference on Thursday, if there is a hospitalization incidence of more than three, 2G is also mandatory?

North Rhine-Westphalia's Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst announced that even a complete exclusion of unvaccinated professionals from gaming would be considered.

The club bosses now have to ask themselves how they can convince the vaccination skeptics in their own ranks even more.

"It would be nice if we could get this under control soon and normality would return," said Julian Nagelsmann as an outlook for the next few weeks and months of the pandemic.

But normality will only return when the vaccination rate increases.

Also at FC Bayern.

Source: spiegel

All sports articles on 2021-11-18

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