Gary Neville believes the Premier League will be able to learn a lot from how the Bundesliga restart their campaign.
Germany’s Bundesliga is set to become the first of Europe’s top leagues to return following the coronavirus crisis after their plans received government approval.
The German government gave approval for the Bundesliga to return in mid-May on Wednesday afternoon, with the league given the ability to decide on the dates themselves, which is expected to be Friday May 15.
The Bundesliga had initially planned to return on Saturday May 9 but that plan was pushed back, though the league is now on course to return in just nine days time - which hands a boost to the Premier League’s own plans to return.
And Neville is hopeful that members of the Premier League will be able to go over to Germany to see first hand how they are managing their return.
“I think at the beginning because the Bundesliga are going to get their games away before ours, what is going to happen is the Premier League will go into training as the Bundesliga are playing matches,” he told The Football Show on Sky Sports.
“I would be hopeful at this moment in time that the Premier League, two or three of them, including medical professionals, are actually on their way to Germany somehow to actually see how it operates and understand how it is all going and be in regular consultation with the club’s doctors over there, the club’s officials, and I’m sure they are. I can’t imagine they are not.
“Even from a broadcast point of view, how you broadcast and the media side of things, I am sure here at Sky we will be consulting with our colleagues in Germany around how we deliver this.
“There is a lot of intelligence you can pick up from Germany, and I think while our players are in those early phases, non contact, marking space type programmes, the German players, or the Bundesliga players I should say, will be on a different programme.
“They will be on full contact, tackling and heading, marking on corners, grappling and we will be able to see what happens over there as almost a live rehearsal of what is going to happen over here in England.”
