No one said that
They also won't be offering a debit solution off the bat for Apple Pay. They even say that themselves, that it will be for Visa/Mastercard credit cards fiirst. But even they know, that they can't have just Girocard as a network running on its own as a debit card solution - with an implementation a year later. They need a co-brand, especially to make the card useful outside of Germany. With Visa starting to trash VPay, time is running out.
But: There are actually internal conversations within the Sparkasse group about switching to a DMC/Debit Visa coupled with Girocard, which would accelerate the acceptance and technical implementation. That is a big step though and I hear that it is far from certain that that will happen. The reason is that some backward looking one fear loosing out on cross-selling credit cards. Others hope that it would increase the use of it for online payments and are fearful of loosing money on other projects such as Paydirekt. Source? I can't say. You can either trust me on that or not. But even from the outside we can see that time is running out to make a decision on a future proof debit card solution.