UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin has admitted that the current football season could be ruled void if leagues are unable to resume in some fashion by the end of June.
Virtually all major domestic competitions across Europe are currently suspended amid the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic, as the globe continues to battle against the growing crisis.
This year's Euro 2020 tournament has already been postponed for a year in order to help facilitate the completion of current campaigns, but even that possibility remains up in the air as time passes.
Teams by and large have professed a desire to see the season completed in order to help preserve integrity, but now Ceferin has acknowledged that the organisation may be forced to scrub results across the board in these extraordinary circumstances if a restart of the game cannot meet an early summer deadline.
Such a decision would likely incense Liverpool and Paris Saint-Germain among others, with both clubs holding likely unassailable leads in the Premier League and Ligue 1 title races respectively.
"If we don't succeed in restarting, the season will probably be lost," Ceferin told Italian newspaper La Repubblica.
"There is a plan A, B and C. The three options are to start again in mid-May, in June or at the end of June.
"There is also the possibility of starting again at the beginning of the next [season], starting the following one later. We will see the best solution for leagues and clubs."
The Slovenian acknowledged that while he would prefer not to play games behind closed doors without supporters, it may prove the way forward as the game looks to figure out its next steps forward.
"It's hard for me to imagine all the matches behind closed doors, but we still don't know whether we'll resume, with or without spectators," he said.
"If there was no alternative, it would be better to finish the championships."
UEFA are likely to face the difficult task of facilitating a continent-wide restart that also includes the remaining rounds of both the Champions League and Europa League, as teams hope to confirm their places in European competition for the subsequent 2020-21 campaign.