Sports reports: UEFA bonuses distributed, security concerns in Munich, and Djokovic’s return in Beijing

The European Football Association (UEFA) intends to distribute 31.5 million euros to the clubs that allowed their players to participate with their country’s national teams in the European Nations League during the 2024-2025 season.

The payment comes within the current cycle of the European Union's Club Benefits Programme, which stems from a memorandum of understanding signed with the European Club Association, which represents more than 800 clubs across the continent.

UEFA explained that these amounts form part of 104 million euros allocated to compensate clubs for the participation of their players in the European Nations League for the 2024-2025 and 2026-2027 seasons, in addition to the qualifiers for the 2028 European Championship.

The program includes 611 clubs from all UEFA member federations, including a number of amateur clubs, as part of compensating the clubs for making their players available to the national teams during periods of international matches.

German Leipzig will top the list of clubs benefiting from the first batch, after its share amounted to about 353,000 euros, in exchange for the participation of 16 players from its ranks with their national teams.

The Portuguese national team was crowned champion of the 2025 edition of the European Nations League, after defeating Spain on penalties in the final match, while the competitions for the 2026-2027 edition began last week.

A media report said, today (Tuesday), that the Munich City Council expressed its dissatisfaction with the holding of the German national football team’s match against Serbia in the European Nations League in conjunction with the activities of the “Oktoberfest” festival.

The German Football Association chose Munich to host the match scheduled for tomorrow (Thursday) several months ago, but the city administration is concerned, with the police forces already busy securing the largest beer festival in the world, in addition to the disturbing reputation that Serbian fans enjoy regarding riots.

A city council spokeswoman told the Abend Zeitung newspaper: “We would have considered postponing the match a logical thing.” This would have relieved the pressure, because Oktoberfest drains a lot of resources.” However, it is now too late to change the date of the match or move it.

Police spokesman Damien Kania said: “The situation arising from the match is something we can handle. We are prepared and have sufficient police personnel to ensure security. “We are used to such operations.”

The Partizan Belgrade basketball team will meet Bayern Munich just one day after the two teams' match. The police plan to deploy about 150 of its members to secure this match, which is classified as “high risk.”

Novak Djokovic said that he feels comfortable with his body's response before the start of the "China Open Tennis Tournament", with the Serbian, who has won 24 major championship titles, seeking to regain his momentum in a tournament in which he achieved great successes, after concerns related to his fitness recently.

Djokovic (39 years old) will return to the court for the first time since his surprise defeat in the first round of the US Open to Mariano Navone late last month. The world number 11 will try to overcome these problems when he faces Portuguese Nuno Borges in the first round in Beijing on Wednesday.