Hearts chief executive Andrew McKinlay says there will be an increased capacity of supporters inside Tynecastle for the club's first Premiership game against Celtic with all of them home fans.
The latest noises from the SFA and SPFL Joint Response Group have been promising as 2,000 are permitted for the Premier Sports Cup group stages, which begin from Friday next week.
And it looks like more will be permitted when league action gets underway as Robbie Neilson and Ange Postecoglou go head to head on 31 July.
McKinlay is overseeing the day-to-day running of club affairs while owner Ann Budge concentrates on the handover to the Foundation of Hearts this summer.
And he insists Hearts will look after their own in terms of ticket allocation — unless forced to provide an away section.
He said: “The up to date position that came out late on Thursday night from the JRG is for the first home game in the Premier Sports Cup and a friendly the following weekend we will have 2,000 fans in attendance.
“For the second cup game, and the first game of the season against Celtic, we are currently working on the number.
"The reason we are working on it is because we have been given different social-distancing numbers to work with.
“It is social distancing inside the bowl but also social distancing on the concourse and they are different numbers.
“We’re working through that but it looks like being a few thousand more. It seems optimistic to me, but we are being told it will be back to normal from August 9.
“The agreement in the cup is we’ll all stick to home fans only. We've agreed with the other clubs in that section that that's the right and fairest way to do it.
"If we'd gone to Peterhead and took our allocation it would be about 15 tickets. The agreement is we'll all stick to home fans only.
"I don't actually know if that will apply to the first couple of league games or not. We've not had those discussions yet and that's something that will have to be agreed at club or league level.
"Certainly from our perspective, we will not bring any away fans in until we have satisfied our season ticket holders - unless we're forced to."
