Scottish Premier League chief executive Neil Doncaster has hinted that a winter break will be reintroduced to the competition as part of wide-ranging reforms. Doncaster said: "There is a lot of misinformation going around about the idea of a summer season. There are only three leagues within the top 25 in Europe who have a summer-based season and one of those is I think returning to a winter-based season."

He added: "If we were going to a summer-based season, then you would be having the climax to your season round about now, which would be far from ideal.

"There are a lot of people who believe that an earlier start to the season might be worth looking at, and that could create the scope to create a winter break.

"Statistically the games that have been most at threat over the last 12 years have been in January, so these conditions are hopefully very exceptional."

Doncaster will hold more meetings with representatives from the 12 SPL clubs and other interested parties in the coming weeks with changes to the calendar and a winter break "very much under consideration".

"There are a huge number of things we are looking at, the calendar, the league structure, the number of league bodies," Doncaster told BBC Radio Scotland.

"To get anything meaningful we need 11 votes and creating consensus on even the simplest things in football can be difficult. That's why it has taken so long.

"What we're trying to do is to rip up what we've got at the moment and replace it with something much better. I don't think there is any point in tinkering."