Bayer Leverkusen confident of Bundesliga resumption in May

2 May 2020

Bayer Leverkusen are confident the Bundesliga will resume in May, says the club's sporting director Simon Rolfes.

The German Football League was hoping a decision would be taken by government on 30 April, but the issue was delayed and the next meeting is on 6 May.

“The most important thing was we got good feedback from politicians for our concepts for games without spectators,” Rolfes told BBC World Service Sport.

“They [the government] think that we are able to do it."

He added: "In the next week we will see which decisions are there. I don’t know exactly when but we hope we play in May, the middle or the end of May, we don’t know.”

The season needs to be completed by 30 June because of deals with sponsors and broadcasters and last week the league said it would be ready to return on 9 May - but 16 or 23 May are now considered more realistic dates.

With nine games remaining in the season, Bayern Munich lead the table, four points ahead of Borussia Dortmund, with Leverkusen in fifth and chasing a Champions League spot.

“We’re also in the semi-finals of the Cup, and we’re still in the Europa League," said Rolfes who insisted his players are not fearful of contracting Covid-19 when football does return.

On Friday, fellow Bundesliga side Cologne said three people at the club had tested positive for coronavirus, but that training will "continue as planned".

Leverkusen brought in a pandemic officer four years ago and Rolfes says there are plans in place if a player contracts the virus, with testing taking place “every three or four days”.

“In the morning when they wake up, they [players] get five questions they have to answer and that goes to our pandemic officer and our head of medicine. So that’s the first check at home," he said.

“Then we try to separate them as much as possible. We use different locker rooms at the stadium to try to keep the risk at a minimum.”