Scottish football: Prof Leitch 'hopeful' of return-to-play update coming soon
- Published
Falkirk are currently top of Scottish League One
Scotland's national clinical director Professor Jason Leitch is "hopeful" Scottish football's lower leagues and the women's game will be told next week when they can return.
All play below Championship level, including Scottish Cup ties, has been suspended since 12 January.
However, the situation is due to be reassessed on Monday.
"I'm hopeful we can do it with mitigation and safety in place," Prof Leitch told BBC Scotland.
"I'm pretty confident that next week there will be news that will indicate where we're headed for the next phases and I'm hoping that will be joint government and league news, because we're trying to do it together."
Speaking to BBC Radio Scotland's Off The Ball, he added: "It's complicated because at one side there is the list of reasons why we should [allow the competitions to restart] and at the other end there are 800 positive tests a day, quite a lot of travel, these teams are not full-time so they're not as protected as the full-time teams. It's not straightforward."
Challenges remain for the competitions, though, with a mix of full-time and part-time clubs in SPFL Leagues One and Two, and the Scottish Women's Premier League.
Some League One and League Two clubs still have 19 fixtures of their 27-game campaign to complete, and would face the prospect of playing every Saturday, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday for a spell to catch up.
Both these leagues are due to complete their campaigns on 1 May, with play-offs scheduled to take place after that to determine promotion and relegation.
In the women's game, some full-time clubs are keen to resume training, even if the restart of the league campaign remains undecided, while the Scottish Cup is in limbo until decisions are made about the resumption of training and playing for lower-league clubs.
Any proposal to reduce the number of fixtures in League One and League Two would require at least eight teams from each league to vote in favour. A similar majority would be required to agree to null and void the lower leagues.