COVID-19 and the vaccination issue are once again keeping a firm grip on football. After Leverkusen’s 1-0 win over Bochum, managing director Rudi Völler called for increased vaccination readiness – and described vaccination refusers who had no medical indication for it as “highly indecent. “
While the vaccination issue is agitating the German record champion Bayern Munich, Leverkusen can take a relaxed view of this topic – at least as far as their own handling of it is concerned. After all, the Leverkusen club can now point to a 100% vaccination rate among its squad and staff.
Nevertheless, Rudi Völler does not criticise the league rivals who do not achieve this status. “It wasn’t the case with us that everyone was enthusiastic right from the start. It’s not that easy to convince everyone “, the manager describes the development at Bayer 04, “we also had two, three, four who saw it differently for a while.”
Völler is not quite so relaxed about the situation in general, however. Although Völler takes the clubs out of the criticism on this topic, he emphatically points out that every individual must bear responsibility in every respect as far as his or her personal decision to vaccinate is concerned. “Basically, everyone should get vaccinated if there are no medical reasons against it. If not, I find that highly indecent. That is my personal opinion,” the 61-year-old states unequivocally.
Völler: “These people must now also bear the consequences “
Völler does not want this to be interpreted as a personal attack on the Munich professional and German national player Joshua Kimmich, who has been criticised since his public statements on the vaccination issue. Rather, the 1990 World Champion is addressing all those who refuse vaccination – in all areas of life – not on the basis of a medical indication.
These people must now also bear the consequences – I’m not just talking about football here, but about football in general and not about any player X or Y,” he stresses and adds, due to the massively increasing number of cases: “Now we have the salad. I hope that there will be a turnaround. “
