This weekend Bundesliga matches saw the inaugural fixtures in professional football's "new normal".

Whilst the UK remains some way off a return to competitive games, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) published guidance last Wednesday upon the ‘return to training’ for elite athletes. For football that means the professional clubs, and their players (including Academy players aged over 16) as well as the associated coaching and support staff. The guidance does not have application to Scotland, where sport is a devolved matter.

The advice is identified as "step one" on a pathway to a more significant second step that will involve players being permitted ‘social clustering'. A term that is explained to include tackling. In the meantime, this initial step is limited to training that the DCMS states should comply with government guidelines on social distancing.

The guidance reflects the fact that health and safety legislation applies to the football training grounds as it does to all other places of work. When a new risk presents itself in a work place there is a legal requirement for a suitable and sufficient risk assessment addressing that risk to be carried out. That should involve consultation with workers in order to best devise controls to eliminate or minimise that risk. The output of the assessment process also needs to then be properly disseminated to employees. The DCMS have however set out some specific expectations relating both to the risk assessment process, and also to controls they state should be included.

Firstly, at a high, level football as a sport, for which one must read the governing bodies such as the FA, is expected in terms of the guidance to appoint a COVID medical officer. That officer should be a suitably skilled physician who is expected to lead on coronavirus medical issues for the sport, including medical aspects of the risk assessment process.

Clubs themselves are asked to appoint a COVID-19 officer to oversee the risk assessment process. Importantly those involved in training should not only contribute to the assessment, and be formally advised of the output of the same, but are also required to specifically "opt in" to resuming training. The decision as to whether or not to opt in should follow a one on one "check-in" designed to ensure that risks, mitigations and site protocols are clearly understood, and that the participant is physically and mentally well enough to ‘opt in’ to training. Crucially all athletes and staff should also be aware of how to ‘opt out’ of training. No "unreasonable steps" should be taken against those who do so.

In terms of testing, the expectation is that the club outline in its controls how regular screening for COVID-19 symptoms will take place. It is clear however that testing of all attending must take place before recommencement, and continue with regularity during the training period.   

In addition to testing and social distancing the guidance identifies a number of other controls that should be included in the risk assessment process, including: 

• Ensuring a deep clean of the training facility before recommencement, that cleaning should adhere to the standard set down by government guidance for post-Covid case non hospital facility cleaning.
• Similarly ensuring cleaning of each part of the facility accessed by participants, that cleaning being compliant with government guidance for cleaning of non-hospital facilities, between each session.
• Determining the numbers of players and support staff permitted to attend at a session, so that the session is both safe, and also compliant with social distancing measures. This may mean staggering attendance for training, and indeed separate sessions for different parts of the squad. 
• Ensuring an appropriate level of medical staffing is in place, taking account the demands of any COVID screening.
• Outlining how equipment being brought into the training venue will be suitably cleaned and disinfected to manage the possible transmission of COVID-19. 
• Outlining how any equipment/items that must be shared within the training venue (e.g. gym equipment) will be cleaned/disinfected between each user.
• Ensuring any support staff within the training environment are operating to the minimum standards of practice that ensure any professional body endorsement and professional indemnity insurances they require are still valid.

The time frame for moving to step two is absent from the guidance document. The government will presumably wish to monitor how socially distanced training fares before addressing the more challenging task of setting out guidelines for "socially clustered" exercises. However with the EPL seemingly keen to progress Project Restart one presumes that this too may be laid out in coming weeks.