Top flight may scrap the split next term

A TRUNCATED Scottish Premiership campaign of 33 games may come into consideration for next season if 2019/20 is able to resume and be played to a conclusion as late as this autumn.

While Scottish football authority insiders are convinced UEFA’s hopes of playing football in

May and June are fanciful, they have placed priority and full focus on finishing the current campaign.

The SPFL and SFA are waiting on word from external forces — either at UEFA and FIFA level of the sport or from the government — before taking any further decisions on the crisis.

They are fully prepared if the game’s governing bodies decree that 2019/20 should be played to a finish, pushed back as far as a September restart.

That may ultimately prove impossible — not least by the government passing any edict via the emergency powers of a new coronavirus bill, to be debated at Scottish parliament on Tuesday, that prevents stadium sport from resuming until later in the year, if at all.

However, should it be feasible, then the

problems of finding rescheduled dates for this season and organising a belated 2020/21 are considered preferable to the predicted fallout from halting, handing out titles, relegating teams without completing and failing to finish broadcast contracts.

The SFA has formally suspended football until at least April 30 and insider forecasts expect that period in exile for the sport to be extended in Scotland and throughout the United Kingdom.

UEFA last week shifted Euro

2020 to next summer, clearing the way for the ambitious thought of domestic leagues rounding off their seasons then national teams contesting play-off games in June.

With that considered highly unlikely, there is more prospect of an autumn finish if there is one at all, with the following campaign beginning after a break of as little as a week.

But with the delayed European Championships pencilled in for a June 11 start next year, a shorter Scottish Premiership season is one option likely to be brought to the table if 2020/21 cannot start until around October.

The 33-game schedule would trim five rounds of fixtures from the crammed calendar and do away with the top and bottom-six split.

But it would inevitably create fresh controversy, in a season most likely to feature Celtic pursuing 10 in a row, by the fixture imbalance of teams contesting two home games and one away or vice versa against rival clubs.