Leeann Dempster has warned that a ‘meteor’ is heading for Scottish football and urged the game to get ready for a ‘new normal’ when the country tries to move on from the deadly coronavirus pandemic.

However, the Hibernian chief executive believes there should be no rush towards bringing the curtain down on the current campaign, believing it could be brought to a climax in August before kicking off next season the following month.

Dempster has relinquished her place on the SPFL’s reconstruction task force to instead play a part in the work to prepare for the resumption of football that has been announced by the Joint Response Group of the governing body and the Scottish FA.

She is hopeful Scottish football can learn from counterpars in countries, such as Germany, where the process of coming out of COVID-19 is further down the line.

But, vowing to work with the Scottish Government on areas such as closed-door games, she acknowledges there is a hard road ahead for clubs as they bid for survival in the face of the financial fallout of the global health emergency.

“We are fighting two fights at the minute,” she said. “We are fighting on the health front for ourselves and our families - the nation is doing that - and then you are fighting for the survival of your clubs, your colleagues, the supporters.

“I’m not underestimating how difficult this is going to be. It really is the biggest challenge that has faced the game. We don’t know exactly how long it is going to go on for, so we need to plan for a couple of eventualities.

“The joint response group is linked directly into government and that relationship is a strong one. The response group has fed information back to clubs in a timely way.

“And we’re not challenging government, we’re not challenging health officials. We need to prepare ourselves for every opportunity and every eventuality.

“We can see the impact social distancing is having, not only on the virus but everybody’s lives. There are some new normals at the minute - and there will be a new normal for football. We need to figure out what that is.

“If we sit back and wait to find out what that is, it will be whatever somebody tells us it is – as opposed to working together and agreeing on something.

‘It might be that we face a scenario where we don’t have fans in the stadium until we have a vaccine. That may well, ultimately, be the case. But we need to do everything we can to find other options.

“That needs to be evidence based. You need to find out things, talk to colleagues.

“I don’t think we should sit back and wait to be told what to do. We need to forge our own way. But do it in a way that is safe. Nobody is ever going to try something that isn’t safe.”

Whilst Dempster is concentrating on the next practical steps for Scottish football, others busy themselves trying to find a reconstruction plan that will satisfy enough clubs, or seek an independent investigation into the actions of the SPFL during the vote on their resolution.

Dempster has refused to get drawn on the latter and insists any new league structure must be based on what is best for the game in the long-term and not simply a stop-gap solution to the current issues with relegation and promotion.

“If I’m honest,” she added, “I think because there has been so much focus on disagreements and because I have been focusing on these other issues - also because I’ve had a bit of a ringside seat, if you like, because I’m at a club and we see a lot of the information - I haven’t given it [an investigation] any significant thought.

“But, at this time, for me, the efforts of the Scottish game should be looking at the meteor which is about to hit us.

“We are open-minded to league reconstruction. But it would have to be a reconstruction that is progressive and looked at the opportunities in the game over the next five or 10 years. Not something that is just rushed or temporary. 

“We believe the biggest issue facing the game in Scotland is not reconstruction, it’s getting our whole game back up and running. 

“The club’s position, as has been discussed at board level, is it would have to be a solution that is good for the game as a whole, is not short term – and something that could unite the game behind it. It has to be genuinely innovative and not just a quick fix for one season.”

Meanwhile, Dempster is also taking a long-term view on the thorny issue of whether the Premiership needs to follow the leagues below in being ‘called’.

"There is a chance of finishing the season – and we need to be open minded,” she went on. “If we were just to say ‘it’s not happening’, we’re not giving ourselves a chance.

“It’s going to be hard, we won’t pretend otherwise. But there is no requirement for us to be making decisions now, to call it now. We’ve got some time. It would be too quick to do so. Things are changing all the time and we need to give it every opportunity.

“If you’re not going to have people in the stadium anyway, why would you be absolutely barrelling towards starting next season on the first of August or whenever? It might be that you’ve got some time.

“The other argument is that this season has been really difficult – and why would you take that difficulty into next season? I think it’s also becoming evident that we’re taking difficulties into next season anyway.

“Could you delay the start of next season and condense it over a shorter period of time? For example, you could start the new season in September. These are just questions to be asked.

“We shouldn’t conclude the season now until we’ve exhausted all possibilities.”