The whistle blows to start the soccer match, fans clap and cheer, the wind blows in and the players start to call for passes and move the ball forward.
You might think this is a soccer match taking place somewhere like England, Germany or even the United States, but in reality, this is a soccer match in Belarus, a country not even 40 years old and a former part of the Soviet Union. The fans wear masks, most seats are empty and everyone present stays close to the people they came in with because of the COVID-19 outbreak. This is the state of soccer in the Belarusian Premier League, the top tier of soccer in Belarus.
All other soccer leagues across the world, from Major League Soccer (MLS) in the U.S. to the K League in South Korea, have suspended their seasons or canceled them amid the coronavirus pandemic, but Belarus plays on. The country’s president, Alexander Lukashenko, has described COVID-19 as “yet another psychosis” and said that “panic can hurt us more than ourselves,” which has led him to keep the professional sports leagues in Belarus open even as others have stopped.
The league features 16 teams, with the team that ends the season in first place winning the title of league champion. The league itself formed after the ending of the Soviet Union and has not received much international attention until now, as teams continue to play.
“The Belarus Soccer Federation has taken measures to keep the players healthy,” said Momo Yansane, a forward on FC Isloch Minsk Raion. “They see that there is a high level of quality players in the league [so] they need to be healthy.”
At only 22 years old, Yansane is not part of the demographic that has a higher risk of getting the coronavirus, but he still sees that he must remain safe while playing soccer.
“I understand how severe the disease is and I understand what people advise as well to stay safe … visiting others could be severe,” Yansane said.
Isloch, one of the newest teams in the league, has seen the effects of the virus, as their stands on match day are empty. Fans that do come try to remain apart from one another, even in the “ultras” section where the most die-hard fans pack in shoulder-to-shoulder on a normal match day. Fans still come to watch the team’s games but are far outnumbered by the empty seats around them.
Other teams like FC BATE Borisov, one of the oldest teams in the league, have responded to the COVID-19 outbreak by not allowing any media into their home stadium except for their own personnel on match day. They also say that once they feel it is safe for media to reenter their arena, they cannot ask about COVID-19 and any related articles, as this would be “speculation about the situation in our country [Belarus].”
Other teams around the league have had their own responses to the virus. Some will put up “fans” in the stands – oversized mannequins with a photo of a real fan’s face taped to each – so that the players have something cheering them on to compensate for an unusually high number of empty seats across their arena.
The Football Federation of Belarus, which is the soccer body that oversees all three tiers of Belarusian soccer and also their men’s and women’s national teams, has not responded to multiple requests for comment on how the national teams will be handling their duties or continuing to train players amid the virus.
For the rest of the world, soccer has stopped and players are staying indoors, but in Belarus, the season has just started, as the league is only one-fifth of the way through a 30-game season.
The whistle blows one final time, and while the game is over, in a few days it will be time for the players to lace up their boots , put on their jerseys and walk back out onto the field as the only people in the world still playing soccer.
Photo Courtesy of Tatyana Zenkovich
