Social distancing measures prevent fans from attending football matches – but they’ll at least be there in spirit at one Bundesliga 2 clash.
Ahead of SV Darmstadt 98’s clash at home to St. Pauli on Saturday, names and pictures of fans have been placed on some empty seats of the Merck-Stadion am Bollenfalltor.
Here’s what the Darmstadt and St Pauli players can expect in the stands when they face each other…
Ahead of the clash, Darmstadt are fifth in the German second tier and will want a win in their bid to challenge for promotion. Meanwhile, St Pauli are 13th in the table.
Darmstadt are not the only club to try and get some form of support into their stadium.
Three Premier League clubs are reportedly considering cardboard cut-out fans in their stands when football is allowed to return in England.
In South Korea, FC Seoul were forced to apologise after filling their empty stadium with sex dolls in an embarrassing mix-up.
The club said they had filled some of their empty seats with ‘premium mannequins’, complete with home and away kits and face masks, ahead of their clash against Gwangju FC.
However, they were actually life-sized sex dolls, that were even holding advertising boards to promote a local adult shop and pornography websites.
That’s despite pornography being banned in South Korea.
Bundesliga side Borussia Monchengladbach launched the ‘Stay at home. Be in the stands’ campaign, encouraging supporters to buy cardboard cut-outs of themselves for £16.50, which were then installed at the club’s stadium – more than 8,000 of them.
