"Football is not everything" - Sheffield Wednesday fan favourite Julian Börner on potential lockdown return

The Sheffield Wednesday fan favourite, signed from Arminia Bielefeld on a free transfer in the summer, has already played under three different managers in Owls colours.

Throw in a season in nosedive halted by the suspension of football due to a global pandemic and it’s a debut campaign few would have imagined.

And asked about the prospect of another challenge being thrown before him; playing matches in front of an empty stadium, the German said: “It will be the sensible thing to do but it will be very strange, like a pre-season game with no fans.

“Fans make the football and without them it will not be the same but the authorities are doing the right thing because people’s lives come before anything else.

“It is so hard at the moment for everyone, there are bigger problems in the world. There are so many people who have lost their lives and so many who have the virus.”

Börner, 29, said he appreciates the privileged position most footballers find themselves in and admitted there are more important things to focus on now than sport.

“A lot of people cannot work, a lot of people have lost their jobs, businesses have closed down and may not return,” he told swfc.co.uk. “The nurseries and the schools are closed, the economies around the world are at stake. All these things are much more important than football.

“Football is a religion in Germany and England but football is not everything. There are bigger decisions to make, the political decisions that will affect us all and we must respect and have confidence in the people making these decisions.

“For me, every day is a new one, I am a lucky one at the moment. I do my running, I do my cycling, I am keeping as fit as I can and I miss the lads, I miss the ball at my feet, I miss the fans.

“But I am well, my family is well, I am so thankful for that. We need everyone to be the same and stay the same before we can think of football coming back.”