At FC Bayern, the focus these days is on corona instead of football. After Joshua Kimmich, four more – presumably not vaccinated – players are doomed to watch. The vaccination debate has been simmering behind the scenes for a long time, but those responsible are now increasing the pressure.
Julian Nagelsmann would like to talk about football again for a change.
But as in the past few weeks, FC Bayern is once again only about one topic before the Champions League away game against Dynamo Kiev on Tuesday (6.45 p.m., live on DAZN): Corona.
Because in addition to the unvaccinated Joshua Kimmich, who missed the latest 1: 2 in the Bundesliga at FC Augsburg because of a corona case in his private environment, the allegedly unvaccinated Serge Gnabry, Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting, Jamal Musiala have also been there since Sunday and Mickael Cuisance in quarantine at home. The reason for this: A staff member of the record champions, with whom the named players had contact, had previously tested positive.
Nagelsmann cannot like that, especially since he is also missing Niklas Süle and Josip Stanisic, who have just returned from quarantine, and Dayot Upamecano (suspension) in Kiev. But the vaccination issue has long since stopped just keeping the coaching staff in suspense.
Bayern Munich: No salary for unvaccinated people in quarantine, but no training and game exclusion
So those responsible looked for information from SPOX and GOAL, with the help of team doctor Professor Roland Schmidt, have held a dialogue with the unvaccinated players several times in the past few months in order to warn of situations like the current one and to explain how important the vaccination is – as is well known, with manageable success.
The attitude of the unvaccinated players, even if they expressed doubts and fears about possible vaccination damage in the conversations, increasingly caused internal displeasure.
The unrest in the club increased significantly within the last four weeks. It should have become loud for the first time in Lisbon in the course of the Corona infection of coach Nagelsmann before the Champions League duel with Benfica in mid-October.
Sports director Hasan Salihamidzic is said to have rounded up the unvaccinated players and clearly asked them to be vaccinated – otherwise, sooner or later their sporting success would suffer.
One month and a few corona turbulence later, the next escalation level: The unvaccinated players who have to be in quarantine are no longer paid during their absence. SPOX and GOAL can confirm corresponding reports via a “report” on Säbener Strasse last Thursday, even if the players received a message from the image the aforementioned possible exclusion from training and matches was not threatened.
FC Bayern want a 100 percent vaccination quota by January
Individuals affected are said to have been somewhat surprised by the sharpness of the conversation and even more so by the measure to retroactively cut the first part of their salary for the past two weeks. You are considering – as well as the BR reported – therefore even to examine legal steps. In the previous dialogues, according to reports, those responsible had not even hinted at such a scenario.
Rather, for the most part, the pleading for vaccination was only objective. But Salihamidzic and Co. did not seem to want to leave it at the “nice tour” after the last few weeks with the 0: 5 swatter in the cup against Borussia Mönchengladbach.
Will that lead to a rethink among the unvaccinated? According to information from SPOX and GOAL, those responsible want a 100 percent vaccination quota by the start of the second half of the season at the latest.
The winter break would be a good opportunity for vaccination. That is at least the advice of Prof. Dr. Tim Meyer, team doctor of the DFB and co-developer of the hygiene concept of the DFL, who in the past few weeks sent an email to all non-vaccinated Bundesliga professionals with the subject: “Get vaccinated!”
