Scotland's national clinical director Jason Leitch has predicted crowds could return to Scottish football by September - but he admits it depends on the nation's response to Covid in the weeks and months ahead.
Clubs have been desperate to have more clarity about when fans might return to stadiums so they can plan their finances accordingly.
Aberdeen chairman Dave Cormack contacted BBC radio show Off The Ball, where Leitch has a regular Saturday slot for questions from the public, to ask for a prediction if football will return on a specific date.
And while Leitch gave no guarantees, he does feel that with vaccination working and travel restrictions in place that supporters could be back in stadiums in the Autumn.
He said: "I think it's credible that the game will return at each of its levels. Crowds is Dave's actual question.
"Crowds is much less predictable. I would hope by September the whole country will be vaccinated. So 9m doses of vaccine - that's huge remember.
"That's a massive logistical excercise. Hundreds and thousands of people working on that even today and up and till then.
"Then we will have to see what the virus does. We will have to see if we have managed to not import the virus again with travel restrictions. So people are going to have to pay some cost to get more freedom. That's why there is crowds at the Australian tennis this week because they have paid a price of international travel to get domestic freedom.
"If we get all of that right as a nation, that's not just the government, it's also all the people, then yes, I think there could be crowds of some description in September."
