The new playing fields

Bundesliga showcases the new normal for sports

The Bundesliga has been the first of the top-flight European football leagues to restart matches for the Covid-19-disrupted 2019-20 season, which should have, in the normal course, ended by now. Fans had had a taste of the future before Europe locked down when Italy, the worst hit by the pandemic on the continent, played some Serie A matches to empty stadiums before the season was suspended. Playing to empty stands is not a novel experience in Italian football — this has been imposed on teams as punishment several times in the past for fan or player misbehaviour or some shenanigans by club managements. Now, this exception is likely to become the rule — at least until the global pharmaceutical industry is able to find a vaccine for the virus. 

In other leagues in Europe, signs of the new times were in evidence before seasons were suspended. Handshakes with opposing team-mates and officials were replaced by elbow-knocking, and celebratory hugs were given the go-by. Bundesliga redux showcased the added restrictions imposed by FIFA. Apart from the mandatory testing of all participants (including ball boys and girls), players arrived in batches in separate buses and the use of the locker rooms was staggered (which must have made half-time team talks extremely complicated). All staff and players on the bench are required to wear masks and sit six feet apart (only the manager, pacing his technical area, is exempt because he needs to shout instructions to the players). The charming tradition of running on to the pitch with kids from junior teams has been jettisoned. Players are forbidden to bump fists or hug to celebrate a goal (doing so attracts heavy fines). In the Revierderby between the two Ruhr rivals Borussia Dortmund and F C Schalke, the celebration of the opening goal by the home team’s teenage striker Erling Braut Haaland was reduced to a short delighted dance in a circle of his team-mates. TV commentators, too, sat in different locations — one at the stadium, another outside it, and the Video Assistant Referees were also located in separate units. 

The experience of watching a match in an echoing stadium is certainly surreal and not a little interesting since you get to hear the shouts — and abuse — from the benches. Though TV audiences are several orders of magnitude larger than in-stadium attendance — broadcasting revenues are the bread-and-butter for most sports — footballers said they missed the high that comes from cheering supporters, not least because an empty stadium somewhat neutralises the advantage of playing at home. At any rate, all of this will reduce the chances of on-field bust-ups between volatile opposing players.

The city-specific nature of the European Leagues makes the possibility of re-starts easier because players and staff live within each country, and travel is limited to inter-city stadiums. Unlike, say, the Indian Premier League, tennis, badminton or Formula 1, which lend themselves to social distancing by their nature, players do not have to jet around the world to participate in tournaments. But football is a high-contact sport, so the Bundesliga will be a test case not just for other European leagues but the conduct of other sport once global travel resumes. The best-case scenario suggests that this season will be a washout for most major events (including the Olympics). For close-contact sports such as rugby, wrestling boxing or kabaddi, the wait will be longer. Restarts will require huge mental adjustments for sportspeople. But it is corporate sponsors, who have poured millions into sporting events as part of their brand-building exercises, that will be counting the losses.