Soccer-German FA chief calls for salary cap to help win over fans

Soccer must learn long-term lessons from the coronavirus crisis, with better financial controls and player salary caps, to keep fans on board, German Football Association President Fritz Keller said. Germany's Bundesliga was shut for more than two months in response to the coronavirus pandemic before becoming the first major soccer league to resume action last week.

"We have to learn from our mistakes because the crisis is an opportunity to restructure football," Keller said in a virtual address to the DFB's extraordinary meeting on Monday. "We need to bring professional football to the people, to their everyday world. So we need an improved financial control system and, yes, a salary cap," he added.

Some German clubs were close to financial collapse after the first month of suspension, the league had warned as it pushed for a restart, which has been criticized by some as too early. Germany has reported some 178,570, positive coronavirus cases, while the death toll rose by 10 on Monday to 8,257.

Keller said that soccer needs to think long-term. "Commissions for agents and immense transfer figure irritate society and estrange them from our beloved sport. Football has to offer satisfactory answers to these issues."

"We do not only need new rules but also a new attitude," Keller said, adding: "Not to think just from season to season as we painfully found out. Football as a whole has to live on long-term perspectives."