Debate before the main round: the handball team remains despite the many corona

It should go on.

After long discussions, those responsible for the German Handball Federation (DHB) decided against leaving the European Championships in Hungary and Slovakia because of the Corona outbreak in the German team.

Instead of leaving, there are subsequent nominations seven to nine.

The DHB announced this late on Wednesday evening.

This Thursday (6:00 p.m. in the FAZ live ticker for the European Handball Championship, on ARD and on sportdeutschland.tv) the tournament for the decimated Germans continues with the first main round game in Bratislava against Spain.

In the evening, President Andreas Michelmann, CEO Mark Schober and authorized signatory Jörg Westheider from the DHB joined forces with Frank Bohmann and Uwe Schwenker from the Handball Bundesliga. The subject of departure should have been quickly off the table. From the headquarters of the European Handball Federation (EHF), President Michael Wiederer is said to have brought the high claims for recourse to the DHB. Should the DHB withdraw from the tournament, they would have to be paid to the EHF. It is apparently about a seven-figure amount that would be due if German games were to be canceled - the EHF would be in the word with sponsors and television stations. There is no force majeure because there are still enough playable players in the DHB squad or they will be added.

At most, the discussion was about moving the Spain game to Monday.

Then you would have won Thursday to prevent further infections and break the chain of infection.

For the German team that would have meant playing on three consecutive days, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday.

A decision was then made late in the evening – out of consideration for the TV stations, the game would be played according to plan.

Three players will be nominated

The DHB had already obtained an opinion within the team. "We asked all the players if they would like to get out of the tournament," said sports director Axel Kromer, "nobody has reported it." Critical tones have long been coming from the league. "It makes no sense to keep loading players from the Bundesliga," said HBL President Uwe Schwenker. He also asked himself, said Schwenker, whether it made sense to leave the team in Bratislava and finish the European Championship. But it doesn't seem to be about sense or nonsense, it's more about the fact that the DHB can't afford to withdraw from the tournament - financially and for image reasons.

First of all, it was "reloaded" again and, as the "Bild" newspaper reported, the Bundesliga professionals Lukas Stutzke and David Schmidt from Bergisches HC and Tobias Reichmann from MT Melsungen were nominated. According to the adjusted EHF regulations, both would be ready to play against Spain on Thursday evening if they could show a negative PCR test. As was heard, the clubs and the HBL are said to have only grumbled that the DHB was continuing its line of late nominations.

The exit scenario became tangible because on Wednesday afternoon three other players with positive corona tests failed and isolated themselves in their hotel rooms: Christoph Steinert, Sebastian Heymann and Djibril M'Bengue. The DHB announced in the early evening that a member of the functional team was also affected. These are the cases ten to twelve in the camp of the German national team at the European Championship. The afternoon training in the Ondrej Nepela Arena was then voluntary.

As of Wednesday evening, Gislason suddenly had only 13 players in his squad: six from his original group, Rune Dahmke, Johannes Bitter, Paul Drux, Sebastian Firnhaber and Fabian Wiede, who were nominated on Tuesday, as well as Patrick Zieker and goalkeeper Daniel Rebmann - they reached the Slovakian group capital on Wednesday. Julius Kühn could also come back from his quarantine for the first main round game this Thursday against Spain, assuming two negative PCR tests and a thorough health check.

The example of Timo Kastening shows that it is not a matter of course for players to return in full fitness after the quarantine: He revealed to the “Spiegel” that he suffers from a sore throat, headache and cough: “I am skeptical whether it will be the case in this final round still works with one mission.” Theoretically, Kastening could have been there again on Sunday.

He went into isolation on Monday after testing positive.

In the evening, the DHB decided against many critical voices from handball and society to continue the tournament, although the measures taken so far have not been able to break the outbreak of the virus in the team.