Bavarian government fearful of COVID-19 spike after UEFA Supercup

There are growing concerns amongst the Bavarian government over the potential for a spike in coronavirus cases as a result of the portion of Bayern Munich fans that have travelled to Budapest, Hungary for the UEFA Supercup against Sevilla (EuroNews). Munich is one of the German cities where the infection rate per 100,000 inhabitants was too high to partially allow fans back into the Allianz Arena for Bayern’s Bundesliga opener against Schalke, despite other German states allowing fans back in venues across the league.

Bavarian minister president Markus Söder has expressed his concern with the number of Bayern fans travelling to the Puskas Arena for the Supercup in Budapest, where the infection rate is “very high.” He said, “We have to be very, very careful not to risk the danger of a soccer Ischgl,” making reference to a famous ski resort located in Austria. More specifically, the Robert Koch Institute in Germany reports that the infection rate in Budapest is roughly 110-120 per 100,000 inhabitants. In Munich, they recently reported an infection rate of 56.13, which is considered to be a “severely affected” number, so Söder’s grave concern is certainly justifiable.

Ironically enough, Bayern’s board members also received some criticism for sitting in close proximity of one another during the Bundesliga opener against Schalke at the Allianz Arena. DFL officials were, in fact, present at the match, but did not require them to move their seats to be spaced further apart. Söder likely wasn’t too pleased when he saw this, though he hasn’t spoken on the matter directly yet.

Photo by Matthias Balk/picture alliance via Getty Images

Over the weekend, Karl-Heinz Rummenigge had said that roughly 2,100 Bayern fans would be travelling to Hungary for the Supercup, and the Allianz Arena has been giving out free PCR tests at the stadium both yesterday and today in coordination with Ecolog. However, the Deutsche Presse-Agentur news agency reported this week that a few hundred supporters had already cancelled their plans to travel to the Hungarian capital.

When it was decided by UEFA that the Supercup would, indeed, go on as scheduled with 20,000 fans inside the Puskas Arena, both Bayern and Sevilla were allocated 3,000 tickets for their sets of supporters. Sevilla has already returned roughly 2,500 tickets on top of the hundreds of Bayern fans that have cancelled their plans of travelling to Hungary.

“The Super Cup is an exciting game, but it’s not the most important game,” Söder concluded. Even Hansi Flick questioned why this match is even set to take place in a city that has such a high infection rate for the coronavirus, perhaps expressing some discontent with UEFA: “It’s something that you can’t quite understand. We’re not the ones who make the decisions.”