How German football plans to restart next week - and what the Scottish game can learn

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 being 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 said. “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 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 80 million people but has recorded fewer than 6,000 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 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 Hans-Joachim 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 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 of 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 via telephone and video conferences.”

Everyone else entering the stadium will fill out a coronavirus questionnaire and be briefed on basic hygiene measures – how to use the hand disinfectant, cough and sneeze properly and keep the required distance from others – as well as having their body temperature taken with an ear thermometer.

There will be no warm-ups, no player escorts, no mascots, no joint team line-ups, no photos and no handshakes. Press conferences after the final whistle will be conducted virtually. Post-match meals will be prepared by club staff and packaged in advance.

Players will shower in small groups and maintain a two metre distance from each other at all times. But they will be encouraged to use single showers or even to shower at home or back at hotels. Water vapour can carry viruses to other people.

The Robert Koch Institute, the federal facility responsible for disease control and prevention in Germany, is looking over the extensive plan and will give its opinion to the government before their talks Thursday.

However, the Department of Health and Safety in has already advised going even further than the suggested safeguards - by placing squads into quarantine in hotels for the duration of the remaining nine games and compelling players to wear "sport-appropriate mouth-nose protection" in matches.

Can the Premiership here do the same as the Bundesliga? The vast sums of money in the German game make it easier for them to comply with all of the conditions.

But if the 2019/20 campaign is to finish or next season is to get underway in Scotland many of their recommendations will have to be embraced amid an unprecedented global crisis.