The 13th Bundesliga matchday had a lot to offer, also for the virus.
If you saw the pictures of a stadium from Cologne's parallel football world that was completely filled with around 50,000 spectators on Saturday, you can understand the indignation and bewilderment that such a disturbing event triggered in many people this weekend.
It was officially a top Bundesliga game in the Rhineland, but it looked like one from Absurdistan.
As a reminder: on 11.11. - in retrospect, unfortunately, quite appropriate - the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) classified the pandemic development as "worrying" in its weekly report at the time. In addition to the increase in serious illnesses and deaths, the institute feared that the available intensive care treatment capacity would also be exceeded.
The RKI therefore "urgently" advised that larger events should be canceled or avoided if possible. That was more than two weeks ago. Anyone who has not closed their eyes and ears to the escalating situation since then just shook their head in disbelief that 1. FC Köln still received special permission to let the Rhenish derby against Mönchengladbach rise in front of a full hut - under 2- G-conditions, like at the beginning of the carnival in Cologne. But that was just the next bad joke, since ghost games were already on the program elsewhere in the republic.
On Saturday morning, the local health department apparently got a little queasy.
The authority decreed an additional mask requirement for standing and seating.
But not everyone in the stadium adhered to this.
But what did that mean?
Nothing.
And who is surprised?
No one.
Interrupt the game?
It is easy to accuse the Bundesliga that, in view of the most difficult situation the country is in during the entire Corona crisis, it did not simply stop this grotesque mass crowd, as the Bremen Senator for the Interior has called for.
However, the league cannot interrupt the game without a legal basis.
At least not without exposing yourself to substantial claims for damages. Irrespective of this, the audacity that 1. FC Köln nevertheless applied for a special permit in this situation in order to get the stadium full, nevertheless breathtaking. But even in this case of epidemiological blindness and football folkloristic ignorance, it is not the league but politics that has the last and decisive word.
However, the responsible Prime Minister defends the audience's decision, but at the same time announces that he is thinking about ghost games - while politicians from other parties castigate this special encounter as irresponsible.
In truth, this is also just further evidence that a policy that is at the limit has only looked at one of the many failures of the German Corona policy in the past weeks and months in the Cologne stadium: This game was also its ghost game.