German giants, Bayern Munich have cut 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.
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.
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 over 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.
‘Everyone has tried to sort out the non-vaccination issue and find a solution,’ Rummenigge said.
‘That didn’t work out. Maybe it will work now.’
