Nicola Sturgeon has confirmed that lower league football clubs in Scotland can return to action.
The Scottish Cup has been given the green light to resume and the Scottish Women's Premier League will also restart.
The First Minister said: "Later today, the Public Health Minister will support the resumption of competitive football in Scottish Leagues One and Two, the Scottish Women's Premier League 1 and for the purposes of playing Scottish Cup ties, certain Highland League teams.
"I hope this news will be welcomed by football fans across the country."
Talks have been held with Scottish Government officials and sports minister Mairi Gougeon over restarting the levels of football which were suspended on January 12.
All but the top two tiers of the men’s game have been in limbo since then, following a response to increased numbers of Covid-19 cases and concerns over new variants.
An SFA statement last night read: “Since then, a series of discussions have taken place via video conference with all leagues affected by the suspension, to establish the measures and protocols under which each might resume their competitions.
“This information has been shared with the Scottish Government and, while it has been positively received, we await a final decision from ministers.”
SFA president Rod Petrie added: “We are grateful to all leagues, clubs and participants affected by the temporary suspension for their patience and understanding during this period of uncertainty.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here