Dortmund (Germany) (AFP)
A Dortmund-Schalke derby at the time of the coronavirus, "it has something of surreal", noted Saturday the boss of Borussia Dortmund Hans-Joachim Watzke, whose team won 4-0 for this resumption match after ten weeks of forced break.
"It has something surreal about it: in the two hours before the match, you receive text messages from all over the world, people who tell you that they are going to see the match on TV, and then you drive through your city and there absolutely nothing is happening. You have to get used to it, "said Watzke, who also gave up going to the locker room after the game as usual," to minimize the risk. "
Asked about the risks of contamination with coronavirus, despite the strict health measures implemented in football, the executive director of the BVB was fatalistic: "There are risks wherever there can be human error, it is like that all over the world, "he said.
"We have developed a protocol that the foreigner asks us to (share), because the other countries would like to have it (...) The fact that we can play, it is also thanks to our political leaders, who have apparently done a lot right, otherwise we would not be in a better position than many other countries, "he concluded.
Germany officially counted 7,881 deaths due to the coronavirus on Saturday, much less than its neighbors who organize the other major championships: Italy, Spain and Great Britain.
© 2020 AFP