Over the past week or so, one of RB Leipzig’s biggest challenges was to decide what they wanted to do with their Champions League clash against Liverpool.
With travel restrictions into the country from the United Kingdom until the 17th of February unless people ‘are returning to their place of residence or for an urgent humanitarian reason, such as urgent medical treatment or an immediate family bereavement’, and the game meant to take place in Germany on the 16th, speculation arose about it being moved to a neutral venue.
Many locations were discussed, with Budapest eventually chosen as the ideal location, which is where it will now be played.
This decision, however, has been met with criticism in Germany, as the general secretary of the Social Democratic Party, Lars Klingbeil, told RTL: “I know how careful the clubs are. I know there is an incredible amount of testing, but football has to ask itself whether you don’t lose touch with reality here.
“Everyone is restricted and now we’re relocating a game across Europe. The teams are jetting across Europe. I don’t think that’s a good signal”.
For Klingbeil, the stronger signal would have been to postpone or even cancel the game, because ‘the competition must not come first’.
This came at the same time as the announcement that lockdown measures in Germany ‘will be extended’, showing just how conscious the country is of the global pandemic and the desire to keep case levels down as vaccines are rolled out around the world.
