Borussia Dortmund’s Bundesliga clash against Mainz 05 postponed

Borussia Dortmund’s Bundesliga clash against Mainz 05 has been postponed after the 05ers were hit by a Covid-19 outbreak.

The DFL has announced that this weekend’s Bundesliga clash between Borussia Dortmund and Mainz 05 has been postponed due to the Covid-19 outbreak in the 05ers’ camp. The new date has also been set and the game will now be played on Wednesday, March 16, 2022 with kick-off scheduled for 18:30 CET.

Mainz 05 announced on Thursday that 19 members of their first-team set-up have tested positive for Covid-19. They further revealed on Friday that 13 of them are players.

Mainz 05 sporting director Christian Heidel said on Friday that they only have 14 players who are available for Sunday’s game, and none of them are goalkeepers. So they decided to submit an application with the DFL to postpone Sunday’s game, and the request has now been approved by the league.

DFL regulations state that a club can only request for the postponement of a Bundesliga game if they have less than 16 players available to play in their squad.

Sebastian Kehl said on Thursday that they were expecting the game against Mainz to go ahead this weekend. But after Mainz requested for the game to be postponed, Borussia Dortmund canceled Marco Rose’s pre-match press conference that was scheduled for Friday, with the expectation that the game would be postponed.

Borussia Dortmund’s next game now will be at home to Arminia Bielefeld in the Bundesliga on Sunday, March 13. They will then make the trip to Mainz on March 16, before taking on FC Köln on the following weekend.