Aberdeen chairman Dave Cormack is putting a “survival plan” in place to see the club through this year without fans at games.
Any return for Scottish top-flight football this year is likely to be behind-closed-doors, with Cormack previously stating he is preparing for fans to be kept out of grounds until January.
Given the Dons have attracted more than 12,000 fans for every single home game during the 2019-20 season, that is a significant shortfall in revenue.
Cormack said: “I think the one thing is that the plan you go out with could be changed every couple of months, depending on the information.
“We used the best information we had two and a half months ago to protect the club with football coming back in August or September.
“Now with everything we know about the pandemic that is not going to be the case. Hopefully, over the next couple of weeks we will have more information.
“The priority is to assess where we might be with this and to be conservative with our projected income so we can see this through. It will take another two to four weeks to put a survival plan in place on the basis that we are not going to be playing in front of fans until January.
“Everything we are doing is how Aberdeen FC survives and through that is doing the best for our stakeholders, our fans, staff, players, management and everyone.”
Cormack took over as chairman from Stewart Milne in December and has been a prominent figure in Scottish football during the lockdown.
He added: “It has been tough being chairman for 90 days and then this crisis hits, but look I am up for it and the fans are up for it. Everybody at the club is up for it. We can’t sit back and wait for it it happen.”
The Dons chief is also committed to giving the Dons fans who have bought season tickets – more than 5,000 – value for money, with a digital option being explored.
Cormack said: “Right now, I can’t tell you how we are going to broadcast games on a virtual season ticket, information like what it will cost to us, what games will we be able to show but that is being worked on right now.
“Hopefully, we will have a bit more clarification in a couple of weeks. Right now, we are projecting there will be no games in front of fans until January, which I think is a prudent thing for us to do.
Former Aberdeen star Alex McLeish was the guest on this week’s Northern Goal podcast:
“Fans are buying season tickets not knowing when they will see a game at Pittodrie and we don’t take that lightly. We are committed to giving full value to our fans for season tickets.
“Many of you will know we are moving to a membership scheme. This can be viewed as almost like a down payment on a membership to the club. We are looking for clarity on what is happening and what games we are able to show in a virtual season ticket until December, will we be able to show home and away games and what will we be charged for doing that.
“I am really asking the fans to put their trust in me and the club that we want to do the right thing.”