Secretary Rod Houston says playing behind closed doors isn’t an option for the Highland League, but is hopeful next season won’t be written off.
The country is still fighting coronavirus but within football planning is underway for the game returning in some form in the future.
The Scottish Premiership is hopeful of a resumption without supporters in August, however, further down the pyramid playing matches without fans coming through the turnstiles doesn’t appear to be viable.
Houston said: “The overwhelming view is that behind closed doors isn’t really an option for us for a whole shedload of reasons. We’re not even looking at that as a possibility.
“What we want is competition that is meaningful and because our clubs depend so heavily on matchday income, we have got to make sure we get good matchdays organised and that’s quite a challenge.
“Right now we’re just at a wait and see stage. We’ve had a look at possible timings but until we get beyond that general stuff there’s not much more we can do.
“We’ll be guided as we have been up to his point by the SFA medical committee.”
If the Highland League has to wait until fans are allowed back into grounds it may be next year before next season starts and there has been talk of leagues being mothballed next season if they can’t begin until 2021.
Houston is hopeful in the north they will be able to hold competitions in some form as well as complete this season’s Highland League Cup with Brora Rangers, Buckie Thistle, Formartine United and Rothes having reach the semi-final.
He added: “We hope next season isn’t written off altogether because we’d like to see some football in 2020-21.
“But we’re going to be at the behest of a number of factors. There comes a point in time where there are only so many fixture dates you have available.
“That’s something we’re going to have to take into account over the next wee while, but we have an idea.
“I have modelled all sorts of fixture calendars so that once we have a clearer sense of when we might be able to start we’ll have an idea of what we can do.
“What we want to do is have competitions that can be complete in whatever time we’ve got for the 2020-21 season.
“Ultimately however if they say there is to be no football then there will be no football and lets not forget there are far more serious things than football just now.
“But we are planning for various types of 2020-21 season and we’ll have to see what the lie of the land is and once we know the lie of the land we can pull all our members into a general meeting and agree a way forward.”
