Bayern Munich have docked the wages of their five unvaccinated players who were forced to quarantine due to coming into contact with a Covid-positive person.
Serge Gnabry, Joshua Kimmich, Jamal Musiala, Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting and Michael Cuisance have all been told by the German club that they will not be paid for every game or day of training they miss when self-isolating after they all refused to get the vaccine.
According to German news outlet Bild, Bayern told the players last week that they would be withholding pay if anyone missed work due to being unvaccinated.
The report comes days after Bayern suffered a shock 2-1 defeat at the hands of local rivals Augsburg on Friday, which saw Kimmich, the midfield star for both Bayern and Germany, miss the encounter after he was forced to quarantine.
Gnabry started that match, while Musiala and Choupo-Moting came on as substitutes, while Cuisance was an unused substitute. Those four players were all then placed into quarantine following a new exposure to Covid, hours after the reports about pay cuts emerged in Germany.
Their Bayern team-mates Niklas Sule and Josip Stanisic had tested positive for Covid last week, with the club confirming that those two players were vaccinated.
Tensions are high in Germany with the country in the grip of a fourth wave of cases and many hospitals full. It has one of the lowest vaccination rates in Western Europe, with 68 per cent of people fully vaccinated. ‘By the end of this winter everyone in Germany will either be vaccinated, recovered or dead,’ health minister Jens Spahn said on Monday.
The news of withheld wages comes less than a week after the five Bayern players were told that they have been banned from staying in the same hotel as their team-mates ahead of a match and must travel to games separately too due to tightening restrictions in the country, which is experiencing a spike in coronavirus cases.
German news publication Kicker are reporting that the five players are irritated that news of their docked wages has been leaked publicly.
The damning report also revealed that there has been a loss of trust from the players, with team morale low as a result.
While the decision to dock the unvaccinated players’ wages may have caused unrest, Bayern’s former CEO Karl-Heinz Rummenigge supported the decision.
The Athletic are claiming that some players have accepted the decision to dock players’ wages, while others are said to be considering legal action.
The decision not to get vaccinated could hinder Bayern’s title aspirations – the club are the favourites to win the Bundesliga and are one of the favourites to become European champions.
Last week, Minister President of Bavaria Markus Soder said there was no choice but to implement a ‘a kind of lockdown for the unvaccinated’ due to the increasing pressure on hospitals and medical staff.
One of these measures includes unvaccinated people in Bavaria being banned from visiting restaurants and hotels. (Daily Mail)
