GREEN SHOOTS OF RECOVERY Can Scotland learn from the ‘ghost game’ blueprint laid out by Germany in bid to return?
GERMANY have shamed many other European nations, not least the United Kingdom, with their swift and thorough response to the coronavirus outbreak in recent weeks.
So can Scottish football learn anything from the blueprint they have drawn up that lays out how they intend to return to competitive action next month and complete the Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2 campaigns?
The detailed 41-page document produced by a Sports Medicine/Special Games Operations task force has still to be formally approved by the government; it is due to be debated by chancellor Angela Merkel and other politicians this Thursday.
The scheduled restart date on May 9, just a week on Saturday, has been openly dismissed as overly ambitious by those who occupy senior positions within the German Football League (DFL). Nevertheless, clubs are training and hopes remain high that “ghost games” will get underway behind closed doors at some point next month.
“The Bundesliga is ready to resume,” said DFL managing director Christian Seifert. “If it’s May 9, we will be ready then. If it comes later, we will be ready on that date.”
There are certainly financial benefits to their proposals the DFL has made sure that a fourth and final tranche of television money worth just shy of 300m euro will be paid by broadcast rights holders Sky, DAZN, ARD and ZDF as originally agreed.
There are many pointers to be picked up from a country which has a population of over 80m people but has recorded fewer than 6000 fatalities from Covid-19.
So how is the Bundesliga going to proceed? And what aspects of their strategy can the SPFL adopt if they decide to complete the Ladbrokes Premiership in the weeks ahead instead of curtailing it like the Championship, League One and League Two?
A country that is renowned, and often ridiculed, for its Teutonic efficiency, has left nothing to chance. It promises to be an expensive undertaking if the top flight here does opt to go down that route. The extent of the precautions could well be beyond the budget of many of the smaller top-flight clubs or even the league.
“We have developed a concept that costs us a lot of money,” said Borussia Dortmund managing director HansJoachim Watzke. “But we do everything so that we can go back to work. We want to pursue our professions. The whole Bundesliga is drowning.”
The DFL paper stipulates how players should ensure their personal hygiene at home, how training should be conducted, how hotel stays should be arranged and how games should be organised inside stadiums.
The duration and intensity of contact with team-mates in training is to be limited, temperature in the training ground closely controlled, team meetings held in large areas and with sufficient intervals in between and rooms well ventilated.
Elsewhere, an individual will be appointed at each club to carry out weekly Covid-19 testing of players, coaches and backroom staff in a separate room with a separate entrance.
The DFL have estimated that 200,000 tests in total will be required. Agreements have already been reached with five laboratory associations and a 500,000 euro donation made so there is no impact on the public.
A team staying in a hotel is encouraged to secure the exclusive use of the entire premises, a floor or at the very least an entrance and an elevator.
Each stadium has been broken down into three zones: interior, grandstand and outside area. A limit of 100 has been placed on the number of people, who are classified as either static or dynamic, who are allowed to be inside each one at any one time.
The total number of people inside and outside the arena cannot exceed 300.
Match day has also been divided into seven two-hour time slots with specific instructions on what is to happen in each one and how many individuals can be involved.
Away teams will arrive in several buses and distance between players and coaching staff inside them is increased. The home side’s players, meanwhile, will each arrive in their own cars. The use of carpooling and public transportation is prohibited.
Once at the ground, separate routes will taken to changing rooms. When inside, squads will be split up and the first team will change away from the substitutes.
“Overall, care should be taken to ensure that only those persons who are indispensable for the game-play are on the team,” the paper states. “People who are not necessary for the direct handling of the game can be contacted
We do everything so that we can go back to work
SCOTT McKENNA has been forced to utilise bannisters, kitchen worktops and his hallway on his road to recovery.
The Aberdeen defender suffered a torn hamstring against St Mirren on February 29, just a fortnight prior to the Scottish football shut-down due to the coronavirus crisis.
Although McKenna was able to receive face-to-face treatment in the immediate aftermath of the potentially season-ending set-back, the introduction of lockdown measures has forced his club’s medical team to get creative.
Pittodrie head of football science, Adam Stokes, admits the situation has been cimplictaed but, thanks to some unusual workarounds, he insists the Scotland internationalist is getting his rehab done.
Stokes said: “Scott is a bit more of a challenge because of the severity.
“With the type of injury it is, you would normally like to be quite hands-on in the early stages, so he is the one we have been really improvising with.
“We have been FaceTiming pretty much every day. There is a decent-sized area of pitch near us that he can work on and we can liaise about where he can do his work. I know the land quite well.
“With some improvisation – his girlfriend taking videos of certain movements – I can keep an eye on his range of movements. That gives me an insight into the progress he is making and when to move on in his programme. We had just moved into that amazing space at Cormack Park, with everything laid out perfectly for the boys – and now we’re working in hallways and front rooms.
“A couple of his exercises involve resistance bands and it can be a challenge to find anchor points in Scott’s flat – so he’s having to use the bannister and hang out the front door. He’s been on work-tops as well.
“We know what we want to give him – it’s just about adapting that to what he has available.”