The game of football has entered a new era where stadiums host no fans, ball boys are busy disinfecting equipment, substitutes spread in the empty stands and a handful creative of elbow-bumping celebrations replacing the traditional hugs.

After a number of countries have already resumed their top-flight championships including Germany, the Faroe Islands and South Korea in Asia, Hungary is one of the latest nations to give its football movement the green light to come back from a lengthy coronavirus break.

At the time of writing, Hungary had recorded over 3,000 positive cases from which almost 2,000 recovered while 509 succumbed to the disease.

The Hungarian FA was determined to restart its football and it has subsidised financially the 12 top-tier clubs to be able to adhere to the required medical protocol.

Women’s football is also being revived with a league title/UEFA Women’s Champions League play-off in place between either MTK and Ferencvaros to determine Hungary’s representative next season.

On the other hand, last week’s high-profile game between Ferencvaros and Debreceni sparked Hungarian football into life once again.

Featuring in that game was former Gżira United striker Haruna Garba. The Nigerian forward entered in the second half for Debreceni who suffered a 2-1 defeat.

Debreceni remain eighth on 30 points, with eight games left to complete the 2019-20 season.

Since joining the Hungarian side, with whom he also faced Torino in the early stages of the UEFA Europa League, he found the net six times in 22 league games.

Unlike the German Bundesliga, teams were not required to stay in quarantine together prior to their league return.

“I am staying in my apartment, just like other players,” Garba told The Sunday Times of Malta.

“The difference from usual is that now we are tested twice in order to make the games safe.”

When some kind of training was allowed, teams had to go through a complex testing process which included Polymerase chain reaction (PCR), blood testing and general medical testing with two tests per week during the so-called ‘pre-season’ training sessions.

“We returned to training around five weeks before the league restarted,” Garba explained.

“Social distance training was the norm for three weeks before we switched to contact training even though we are still being tested as per the health authority guidelines.”

Apart from the players, even team personnel, whose job is on the field of play, is being continuously tested with PCR tests being held between 24 to 36 hours prior to each game.

In case of a positive test, a 14-day quarantine is required and once this person shows no symptoms for 48 hours and resulted negative twice, he would be allowed to return.

For Garba, adapting to these measures was not easy because he had to think about his health while doing his job.

However, the former Ħamrun Spartans player has heaped praise on how the Hungarian FA has handled this process, deeming it as a safe one.

“At the start, it was not really easy because you are not really free,” he explained.

Fans set to return

“But once tests have become the norm for us, we started to believe and trust each other, but not only as team-mates but even as opponents because after all every team is going through the same procedure.

“I feel that restarting the league was the best decision, as I feel safe to play while going through all the medical protocol required to remain negative to the Covid-19.”

In a change of events, the Hungarian government has now allowed sports events to host fans although mass gatherings were banned until August.

Nonetheless, there are still measures that clubs still need to go by which is that fans have to sit in every fourth seat of the respective row.

In addition, there should be no one sitting in front or behind a particular fan, in a pattern that will resemble more like a human choreography.

This news will be welcomed by Garba who expressed his disappointment in not being able to play in front of crowded stands.

“The only bad thing in this return to football is playing without fans, because it does not feel the same playing in an empty stadium.”