Rangers boss Steven Gerrard urges SFA to take advantage of free week and play the Scottish Cup to a finish

The national cup competition was suspended last month due to rising coronavirus infection rates and increased lockdown restrictions and there are fears it could now be cancelled.

Jim Goodwin, the St Mirren manager, this week stated the 2020/21 schedule is now too congested to complete it and called for the organisers to “write it off”. 

There are 12 outstanding second round matches and no fewer than 43 ties still to be played in total.

However, the SFA are determined to play the Scottish Cup to a finish and distribute £5m of prize money in full to clubs.

There are contingency plans to play a “festival of football” and cram three matches into a 10 day window before the semi-finals in April. 

Premiership champions elect Rangers, who are set to take on Cove Rangers in the third round, could potentially record their first league and cup double since 2009 this term.

Gerrard feels the SFA - who completed last season’s Scottish Cup, which was postponed due to the Covid-19 outbreak last March, in November and December – have scope to reschedule games. 

“I can understand the difficulty of trying to find enough available slots,” he said. “But let us try and do our best and let us try to get it complete.

“It is a big competition and a competition we as a club want to compete for and try to win.

“I’m sure the players want to play as many games as possible so I would be really disappointed if it got taken away from our schedule this season.

“I do appreciate it is a big challenge because of the pandemic. What I would say is during the split there is a free week and we have managed to move fixtures already.

“So hopefully there is enough time to play the games and enough support for it. If not, we might have to force it into next season.”