Aberdeen manager Derek McInnes keen to highlight good work done to keep football going during pandemic

Aberdeen boss Derek McInnes harbours concerns about how Scottish football can navigate the pandemic.

The SFA has suspended all football below the Championship until the end of the month due to rising Covid-19 cases across the country.

McInnes hopes the hard work and financial outlay from top-flight and Championship clubs will allow the top two divisions to continue through the whole season.

All Scottish Cup ties scheduled to be played before February have also been postponed, including the Dons’ third-round tie away to either Huntly or Dumbarton.

The Scottish Government this week confirmed tighter lockdown laws as deaths from Covid-19 in Scotland exceeded the grim 5,000 mark.

McInnes said: “There is a concern within football in general about how we navigate through this situation.

“It has not been without incident, we have not been devoid of criticism in the football world, but certainly a lot of good has been done to try and keep going.

“A lot of financial input and a lot of sacrifices have been made so we can get football played in the top flight.

“It is good the Championship can remain with testing and at the minute we continue.

“But there’s always a natural concern at the back of the mind and, given what is happening in England, that it starts to affect us here too.”

Following a meeting between the SFA and the minister for public health, sport and wellbeing, a temporary suspension until January 31 of the majority of leagues was agreed. Those leagues put into cold storage for the month are League One, League Two, Scottish Women’s Football Premier Leagues 1 and 2, the Highland League and the Lowland League.

In a far-reaching suspension the East, West and South of Scotland Leagues, Scottish Junior FA Leagues and the North Caledonian League are also postponed for now.

The Premiership is exempt from the suspension, provided the 12 clubs continue to adhere to the stringent testing protocol.

That is mandatory twice-weekly testing for top-flight clubs.

Championship football can continue, but only on the proviso clubs commence weekly PCR testing.

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The SFA in partnership with the Scottish Government will review the suspension on a rolling basis from when it is set to end on January 31.

Aberdeen have had their own Covid-19 situations this season, as have many clubs in Scotland.

In August, eight Aberdeen players were discovered to have attended a busy city bar in breach of coronavirus restrictions protocol.

Two subsequently tested positive and all eight had to self-isolate.

In November, Ross McCrorie, who was asymptomatic, tested positive following an outbreak of Covid-19 in the Scotland Under-21 camp following Euro U21 qualifiers.

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Club team-mates Lewis Ferguson and Connor McLennan, who both tested negative, also had to self-isolate having been identified as close contacts of a positive case.

Celtic had 13 players self-isolating, including manager Neil Lennon and assistant John Kennedy, for the 1-1 draw with Hibs on Monday.

French defender Christopher Jullien tested positive on return from the club’s warm weather training camp to Dubai.

Chief executive Peter Lawwell later issued a “profound apology” over the club’s disastrous United Arab Emirates trip.

A Message to Our Supporters.

— Celtic Football Club (@CelticFC) January 13, 2021

McInnes said: “I think in general we just need to be as squeaky clean as we can be and highlight the professionalism of the majority of clubs.

“It is easy to highlight the incidents where clubs have not done things properly and where players have not done things quite right.

“We are putting ourselves out all the time and others can maybe work in a safe environment, but we have to go out there… this is our job and when it was taken away from us, it was really tough.”