After the Free State allowed 14,000 spectators to attend the German team's group games a few days ago, Interior Minister Seehofer also relaxed the pandemic.

At least when it comes to football.

After the Söder team “Caution & Prudence” took a break, the cabinet in Berlin decided on Wednesday to give the football industry a few exemptions from the quarantine obligation.

According to the motto: Free travel for the EM even during the pandemic.

At the border, things are a little more relaxed when football and its extra-occupational entourage approaches. After entering a so-called virus variant area, it is not only the players who are exempt from the obligation to register and segregate, as it is so nicely bureaucratic. Journalists who report on European Championship games now also belong to the preferred travel group. The transport ban actually due for such areas no longer applies in these cases. But around the event, it is said, strict protection and hygiene concepts should continue to apply. Sure, of course!

How well this works with the virus shielding service in international football has been observed pretty closely for months: when looking at the number of cases.

Shortly before the European Championship tournament, it hit the Spaniards.

Captain Busquets was infected as well as Lorente, both professionals are in quarantine.

Only a limited security

The other national players only train individually.

The virus has also crept into the Swedes, two players are also affected there.

The Swedes, who meet Spain in the first group game, continue to train as a team.

This is permitted according to the regulations of the European Football Union.

Whether it makes sense is another matter.

Living with the virus - that has long been part of everyday life in the football business. Sometimes, however, a rather questionable one. In fact, the billion-dollar industry has managed to secure its business model to some extent in the pandemic. But this model only includes security against the virus to a limited extent, not to mention maximum or even absolute security.

One look at the German squad is enough to put the risk assessment of professional football against the risk behavior of Germans in the right relationship. Of the 26 EM players, around a third became infected with the virus during the course of the pandemic - despite all the highly praised concepts and quarantine measures. Fortunately, the illness was mostly quite harmless among the best fit national players of low risk age and not like with Gündogan, who made no secret of how badly it had hit him.

A look at the general population shows what the protection of players from the virus looks like in reality. According to the Corona app, around 3.7 million Germans have officially been infected so far, and it is suspected that the number of unreported cases is quite high. If the quota in this country were in reality as high as in the national team, around 25 million Germans would be affected by Corona. The conclusion that can be drawn from this with a view to the protection concepts of football is obvious: blatant defensive gaps cannot be overlooked.