Rugby has been warned that its return-to-play measures must be even tougher than football's and should consider introducing uncontested scrums.
A former World Rugby medical advisor, Barry O’Driscoll, claims the sport must make significant Covid-19 adaptations to reduce the risk of lawsuits worth millions of pounds.
However, World Rugby countered that there would not be insurmountable problems with the sport’s comeback and that they would follow World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines.
O’Driscoll believes that close contact sports face higher risks of viral transmission and drastic changes must be made on the pitch.
He says: “Soccer can more or less resume on the same circumstances but it’s a nonsense to suggest it’s the same for rugby.
“It’s hard to say where rugby starts. The ball is handled frequently, unlike soccer, so there’s a much bigger capacity for germs to move around.
“If they were going to go in July, they would have to consider unopposed scrums, going through the motion without even putting your head down. Perhaps you’d have to stop rucks and mauls much quicker.”