The SFA are expected to announce today whether they will be able to play this season’s Scottish Cup.
Life below The Championship has been on hold since January 11 with most of this season’s Scottish Cup left at the Second Round stage. Last year at this time the semi-finalists were known.
Celtic were due to play the winners of Arbroath v Falkirk in the Third Round but with Falkirk currently mothballed news is awaited today from the Joint Response Group over whether the lower divisions can resume to clear the fixture backlog.
On February 9 the SFA announced:
Regrettably, the government has today confirmed that – in cognisance of the current restrictions in place across the country – they cannot currently commit to return dates for those affected leagues in the coming weeks.
We will continue to speak with all parties in the meantime and will provide a further update by 1 March. This date should not be seen as a proposed restart date, however it should help provide some clarity to affected clubs to aid their planning over the short term.
The weekend of March 14/15 is currently blank and could be used but it would be quite an achievement to get the Second Round completed to fit in the Celtic v Arbroath/Falkirk match over that weekend although all matches are played to a finish this season.
Hampden is scheduled to host the final on the second weekend of May before preparing to host fixtures at the European Championships. If there is no resumption of football for the lower leagues today it looks like Celtic’s bid for 5-in-a-row will be put back until next season.
Although the Scottish Cup has no sponsor the SFA does have broadcast deals with BBC Scotland and Premier Sports.