Record champions Bayern Munich will in any case have to play in front of empty ranks again in the future.

This was announced by Bavaria's Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU), who calls for ghost games in all German football stadiums, even before the federal-state consultations on the corona pandemic this Tuesday.

The nationwide return of the Bundesliga games to the exclusion of the public is also considered certain. 

“It makes no sense in the foreseeable future to allow viewers again,” said Söder in the BR: “It is an important requirement that we decide today that we will no longer make any more viewers in the future.

If that doesn't work at the federal level, we would do it for Bavaria alone. "

Söder justified the move on Twitter: “The high mobility on arrival and departure is currently irresponsible.

Football has a great role model function.

We now have to reduce contacts everywhere. "

The outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) and her soon-to-be successor Olaf Scholz (SPD) will discuss the situation of the pandemic with the heads of government of the federal states from midday.

The calls for tightening the protective measures and restrictions had become louder in the past few days.

The reason for this is the high number of infections and the spread of the new Omikron variant.

"There was an error"

It already seems clear that the ghost games will be reintroduced across Germany.

"We have to cut back on recreational events significantly," said the Executive Minister of the Chancellery, Helge Braun (CDU), in the ZDF morning magazine: "The fact that there were big Bundesliga games with tens of thousands of visitors last weekend is no longer justifiable in view of the dramatic situation in the country."

Robert Habeck of the Greens made a similar statement.

“The Bundesliga doesn't have to play in full stadiums.

That is already possible now and could have been forbidden last weekend, "said Habeck:" We will surely find a solution in the office of the Prime Ministers with Ms. Merkel and Mr. Scholz, so that exactly this will also not happen in the future.

It was a mistake that the Bundesliga played in full stadiums on the last day of the match.

That is absolutely clear, that should have been stopped. "

Above all, the derby between 1. FC Köln and Borussia Mönchengladbach (4: 1) on Saturday in front of 50,000 spectators had fueled the debate about the ghost games.

Numerous politicians and experts expressed their incomprehension.

The widespread return of the encounters in front of empty ranks, the end of which had been proclaimed by politicians six months ago, therefore seemed only a matter of time.

On Sunday, RB Leipzig had to do without their own supporters in the game against Bayer Leverkusen (1: 3);

In Saxony, too, the incidence figures have skyrocketed.

The fact that club officials like Thomas Hitzlsperger from VfB Stuttgart ("Ghost games are really dramatic for us") and Alexander Wehrle from 1. FC Köln ("We are not the hotspots as big events") resisted the ghost games seemed to have no prospect of success anyway to have.

After all, the idea of ​​67,000 spectators at the top match between Borussia Dortmund and Bayern on Saturday cannot be conveyed for large parts of politics and in the experts' camp.